I 




A PRACTICE COURT 




OF 



GOLF 




BY 



JOHN DUNCAN DUNN 



HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK y LONDON 






d 



HARPER'S A-B-C SERIES 

A-B-C OF GOLF. By John D. Dunn 

A-B-C OF VEGETABLE GARDENING. 
By Eben E. Rexford 

A-B-C OF CORRECT SPEECH. 
By Florence Howe Hall 

A-B-C OF ARCHITECTURE. By Frank E. Wallis 

A-B-C OF HOUSEKEEPING. 

By Christine Terhune Herrick 

A-B-C OF ELECTRICITY. 

By William H. Meadowcroft 

A-B-C OF GARDENING. By Eben E. Rexford 
A-B-C OF GOOD FORM. By Anne Seymour 
16mo, Cloth 



HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 



A-B-C OF Golf 



Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers 

Printed in the United States of America 

Published March, 1916 

MAR 15 1916 
©CI.A427256 
Ho. \< 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. The One Essential Thing 1 

II. Building Up the Swing 22 

III. Building Up the Swing {Continued) ... 46 

IV. The Long Game 65 

V. The Quarter Game 84 

VI. Putting 96 

VII. Hints and Tips 103 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



ABC OF GOLF 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

IN golf, as in all other departments of hu- 
man knowledge, it is necessary to dis- 
tinguish clearly between the essential and 
the non-essential. Many books have been 
written upon the art of propelling that 
elusive little sphere of rubber and ^^ gutty''; 
many pundits have essayed to expound the 
mystery; many despairing duffers have sought 
to purchase, with mere ducats, the easy 
grace, the well-nigh supernatural skill of the 
local ^^pro.'' The earlier golfing authors 
seemed to look upon it as a literary rather 
than an athletic exercise; the ingenious gentle- 
man who has favored us from time to time with 
ponderous tomes bearing the great names of 

Braid; Verdon, et al, undoubtedly considers 

X 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

it an exceedingly abstruse science; to Mr. 
Arnold Haultain, delightful essayist, golf is 
merely a state of mind. Certainly in golf, 
wisdom does not reside in the multitude of 
counselors. 

Essentials and non-essentials; but to enu- 
merate the latter would be a hopeless task. 
Time and time again the would-be golfer has 
stumbled upon (or purchased) what he fondly 
imagines to be the prime, great secret. And | 
for a little while it does work; then come a few 
bad shots, loss of confidence follows, and the 
^^ cure-air' is sent to join its predecessors in 
the discard. In golf, as in medicine, quacks 
and nostrums flourish monstrously well, and 
there is never any end to the procession of 
willing victims; the canny professional may 
fool the duffer all the time if he chooses to do 
so. 

Let us begin then by putting aside all 

speculation and worry over such unimportant 

details as grip, stance, the snap of the wrists, 

timing of the stroke, and a score of similar 

shibboleths. I don't intend to say that these 

things mean nothing at all, but they don't 

possess supreme importance; they are not 

essential to good golf. One may play with 

the orthodox or with the overlapping grip; 

one may stand with both feet parallel to the 

2 



I 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

line of fire, or with the right foot advanced, 
perhaps drawn back; one may use a great 
deal of wrist action, or virtually none at all; 
one may swing in a long or in a short arc, 
vertically or flatly, slow or fast — and yet suc- 
ceed in getting the ball away. In a word, 
there are no hard and fast rules to govern 
these differences in golfing form, but it is 
a safe plan to avoid extremes and keep to 
the middle of the road. Later on I will give 
a set of simple exercises and. tests which will 
enable anybody to acquire a sound working 
style; upon this fundamental basis the genius 
can build up his variations to suit himself. 

Is there any positive essential of golfing 
style, any irreducible minimum of correct 
Jorm, failing which good golf is im- 
possible? I think that such an essential 
does exist, but let us first consider the con- 
ditions of our problem — just what are we 
trying to do? Now it will be generally ad- 
mitted that the vast majority of golfers, 
including all duffers, are chiefly interested 
in the long game, the driving off the tee and 
through the green. It may be true that the 
good putter is a match for anybody, and that 
the accurate approacher does not have to 
putt; but how many golfers would there be 

if all our matches were played on miniature 

3 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

links and ladies' greens? The intrinsic, in- 
effable charm of golf lies in the free hitting, 
the propelling of the ball to the utmost 
possible distance. A player who is good at 
the quarter game and at the holeside may 
win many (handicap) cups, but he forever 
misses one of the few really great sensations 
of life — the pleasurable feeling of putting 
everything at our command into the driving 
stroke, the glorious spectacle of the httle 
white ball describing its perfect arc against 
the blue of the summer sky. Yes, there is 
but one master-stroke, and that is the long 
drive; until that object is at least measur- 
ably attained nothing else matters. 

Now the problem is really one of mechanics, 
the proper distribution of force. If the play- 
er is provided with the regular complement of 
arms, eyes and legs, and possesses fair phys- 
ical health, there is no reason why he (or 
she) should not acquire a respectable long 
game. Very long driving depends upon 
good form plus an endowment of physical 
powers that is distinctly above the average. 
For example, James Braid and Edward Ray 
are men of unusual bodily strength; they 
drive a longer ball than the ordinary first- 
class golfer simply because they possess re- 

mark^le brawn and muscle; no amount of 

4 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

skill or finesse can bridge this purely physical 
gap. But, on the other hand, most duffers 
would drive a much longer ball than they 
do if only they knew how to use what 
strength they have. Many a time I have 
had a pupil say to me: ^^I know I ought 
to drive farther, but I can't get the power 
to the ball.'' Precisely. The player feels 
that his stroke is lacking in force — that 
is, effective force; there is no gimp in it. 
He knows that he is hitting hard enough, 
but somehow the power is lost in the process 
of its delivery. 

Well, the thoughtful student of the game 
feels that there must be a reason for this 
discrepancy between the effort and the re^ 
suit; and there is — a perfectly simple and 
intelligible reason. Let me show you what I 
mean by the process of analogy. 

Take up a boxing position, and imagine 
that you are going to deliver a straight- 
forward blow with your ^Herrible left." But 
simultaneously as you extend the arm, con- 
tract your muscles as though endeavoring 
to hold it back, the two energies counteract- 
ing one another. Your fist will finally ar- 
rive at the punching-bag, but there won't 
be any sting in the blow; you will realize 

that such a ponderous, slow-moving effort 

5 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

would never put Mr. Jess Willard asleep. 
Now what has happened to prevent the utili- 
zation of your full striking strength? Why, 
evidently you have been playing one set of 
muscles against another, and consequently 
the power of the blow has been virtually 
neutralized. Try the experiment, and you 
will readily grasp the idea. 

Now it is precisely the same sort of error 
that is fundamentally responsible for all 
forms of short and erratic driving. Some- 
where, somehow, we are allowing one part 
of our muscular equipment to work against 
another part, and the natural and disappoint- 
ing result is that we don't, we can't deliver 
the power to the ball. Our inquiry then 
must be to discover the point where this 
wasting occurs; having once found the leak, 
we may then proceed to stop it. 

As I have said above, the full driving stroke 
is a mechanical problem — the proper dis- 
tribution of force. As we stand at the tee 
we are proudly conscious of possessing a 
certain amount of physical prowess, and we 
know that the power of the blow we are 
about to strike is enormously multiplied by 
the leverage of the forty-three-inch club 
that we hold. We feel that we can hit that 
impudent, little white pill, and we try it — 

6 







Fig. 1 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



YeT 



with all our strength, a mighty heave, 
even granting that the ball has been taken 
cleanly, it flies a disappointingly short dis- 
tance. Again, its flight clearly lacks life; 
it hurtles through the air more like a clod or 
a potato than a golf-ball. Yes, and we are 
conscious that the biggest part of our effort 
was dissipated in a wrong direction. Perhaps 
we were swung clear off our feet, finding a 
decided difficulty in maintaining our equi- 
librium at the finish of the stroke; we had 
to fight to keep from falling on our nose. 
Or we felt ^^all tied up in a knot''; there was 
an unpleasant jarring shock as the club- 
head connected with the ball. And yet the 
feeling of tremendous power was present 
throughout the stroke. Where did it get to? 

Let us try another simple experiment. 
Take a croquet-mallet and, standing with 
both feet planted firmly on the ground, raise 
the implement vertically over your right 
shoulder, as though you were about to bring 
it down on a tent-peg (Fig. 1). Curiously 
enough, we all seem to be born tent-peggers 
and pile-drivers, and there is no possibility 
of going wrong in making the motion I have 
indicated. And now I wish you to observe 
two or three things very carefully. 

In the first place, you are conscious that 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

you are standing in a perfectly natural and 
easy position; and, secondly, that this posi- 
tion gives you every advantage to put in 
the full measure of your strength; thirdly, 
you are aware that the application of the 
power starts with the unbending of your 
wrists, continues with the straightening of 
your arms, and ends with the imposition of 
your full weight. You try the stroke, and if 
you possess a reasonably accurate eye the 
peg is driven into the ground; moreover — 
and this is the important point — you feel 
that the force has been put upon the precise 
spot where it is wanted, and that none of it 
has escaped. Natural and easy, isn't it? 
Now step up to the tee and drive another 
ball. How different! Again that uncom- 
fortable feeling of misdirected effort, of loss 
of power. 

Well, where does the difficulty lie? We 
quickly perceive that the tent-pegging and 
the golfing stroke vary in one important par- 
ticular — the direction of their planes of force. 
When you hit down on the tent-peg you are 
exerting energy in a strictly vertical plane, 
while a golf-club, at the moment of impact, 
is moving along a theoretically horizontal 
line. Perhaps you will remind me that a 

baseball-player's bat is swung in a hori- 

9 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



otioiP 



zontal direction. Truly so, but the motiof 
is a natural and easy one because the base- 
baller stands normally upright, and his bat 
moves in virtually the same plane through- 
out the stroke. He can't hit as hard as the 
tent-pegger or the axman, for the simple 
reason that the line of his weight does not co- 
incide with the plane of applied force; still 
he can strike hard enough for practical pur- 
poses, and the timing of the stroke is nol 
very difficult. Now in golf the swing i^ 
more complicated, since the object to be hit 
is lying on the ground; the player must bend 
over to reach it, and he must drive it away 
with a sidewise blow. Consequently, the 
club is taken back in both a horizontal and 
a vertical plane, and it returns to the ball on 
a compound curve. Obviously the golf 
stroke must be more difficult to execute than 
either the strictly horizontal hit in baseball 
or the strictly vertical blow in tent-pegging. 
You may wonder why I am going into 
these scientific intricacies, especially as this 
is the A-B-C of Golf, and I warned you that 
non-essentials do not matter. Well, I still 
mean what I said before — they don't matter. 
Take a golfer who has learned his game as a 
boy — that is, imitatively. Does it make 

any difference to him whether or not 

10 



P THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

he knows that his swing is, scientifically 
speaking, a flattened ellipse? Certainly not, 
and neither does it make any difference to 
you — that is, in the practical sense. But I 
am assuming that you did not begin golf in 
the happy days of childhood, when every- 
. thing comes without conscious thought or 
feffort. Therefore, in your case it is nec- 
jessary to become acquainted with the 
ifundamentals of. the problem; I must 
jteach you how to dissect the golfing swing 
iand then to build it up again. It is a psy- 
jchological truth that the adult mind can- 
not direct the muscles in performing any 
physical feat, unless it clearly understands 
what it is trying to do; the child proceeds 
by intuition, the grown-up according to 
reason. With constant practice the muscles 
are educated to the work demanded of them; 
then follows automatic control and the mind 
is relieved of its onerous duties. 

Little by little I am trying to lead you to 
my point — the one essential thing upon which 
the golfing swing depends. You are now 
ready to admit that it is easy to strike an 
effective downward blow (the tent-pegging 
stroke) and almost as easy to line out a hit 
at baseball with a horizontal swing. But the 
full drive at golf is quite another matter; it 

2 11 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

is not at all easy. I ask why, and you quote 
what I had to say about its being compound 
motion. Quite true, but let us go a step 
further. Why is the tent-pegging stroke 
easier than the drive at baseball or tennis? 
Because, you answer, the player's reserve 
power (the weight of his body) lies in the 
same plane as that in which the force is ap- 
plied. Very well, and now please tell me 
what common characteristic all three strokes 
must possess if success is to follow effort? 
Such an essential does exist, and we may ex- 
press it in a single word — balance. 

Balance. Not a very long word, but of 
infinite significance in the art which we are 
endeavoring to acquire. Take again the tent- 
pegging position. Are you not keenly con- 
scious of the fact that you are perfectly 
poised to strike the blow, and that nothing 
in the downward stroke is likely to throw 
you off that balance? As a consequent, you 
do not have to devote any of your attention 
or strength to the task of keeping steady on 
your feet; you possess a perfect natural ful- 
crum from which to deliver the goods and 
particularly the thing that counts — the weight 
of the body. In a word, you are balanced. 

Take the baseball-hitting position, and 
imagine that you are to connect with a ball 

12 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

coming at you comfortably waist-high. There 
isn't just the same feehng of absolute ease 
and sense of power that you experienced 
in the tent-pegging stroke, but still you are 
confident that you can make that ball travel 
if only you can meet it squarely. Again, the 
secret is balance, a poise of body that is 
taken instinctively and held without special 
effort. But it is a little more difficult than 
in the tent-pegging stroke, because the 
weight of the body does not lie in the plane 
of force; the hit is horizontal and not vertical. 
Now we will consider the case of the golfing 
duffer, and you must confess it honestly if 
I succeed in naming any of the mental mis- 
conceptions that you may have formed re- 
garding the nature of the golfing stroke. 
For example, don't you somehow believe 
that you must feel the power going into the 
ball? Don't you make the determined and 
conscious effort to get the sensation of hitting 
that miserable quinine-pill a really tremen- 
dous smash? Yes, and when you did make 
that superhuman endeavor were you not 
painfully aware that something had gone 
wrong? Perhaps you thought that by sway- 
ing the body well over to the right on the 
back swing, you would then be able to hurl 
your weight at the ball and so compel it to 

13 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

move along. But driving a golf-ball is not 
the same thing as bursting in' a barn door, 
and the net result of the sway to the right 
was distinctly disappointing. Or again, you 
consciously leaned to the left as the club 
went back; the idea in your mind was that 
you would be sure to have your full weight 
on the ball at the moment of impact. But 
with the body in that position the weight 
could never be brought in behind the ball, 
and so it was worse than wasted. Then you 
fell back on purely empiric remedies — the 
position of a foot, the tightness or looseness 
of a hand. But always you ended where you 
began; you remained the more or less com- 
plete duffer. 

The great initial difficulty was your failure 
to understand the part that the body should 
play in the stroke; you did not keep it bal- 
anced, and so body-flow became body-check, 
and the greater portion of your natural force 
had to be employed in maintaining your 
equilibrium. And every ounce of strength 
thus diverted was so much taken off from 
what should have gone into the ball. Men 
have golfed all their lives long without once 
getting hold of what I may call the feel of 
the stroke. For when the ball has been per- 
fectly hit, with everything going into the 

14 




THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

blow, there is a total lack of the feeling that 
great power 'is being applied. The effort 
is so smooth and even that the ball gets it 
all, and none of the energy reacts upon the 
frame of the player. But the instant that 
one set of muscles is put to work maintain- 
ing the player's equilibri,um, while another 
set is endeavoring to swing the club through, 
the two energies are bound to conflict in a 
greater or less degree and the stroke is pro- 
portionately spoiled. 

I always try to make my pupils understand 
that while the golfing stroke is made strictly 
with the wrists, hands, and arms, yet these 
members supply only a small part of the real 
propelling power. The arms in themselves 
possess but little actual strength; the oars- 
man who relied upon them exclusively would 
not make very rapid progress, and he would 
soon tire of the great exertion. The real 
energy comes from the big, strong leg and 
back muscles, and the arms are little more 
than connecting links and rods. It is the 
same in golf. The hands and arms are the 
only members that enter consciously into 
the stroke, and yet they contribute but a 
small percentage of the total power. When 
the heavy muscles of the thighs, back, and 
shoulders (finally reinforced by the full 

15 



A-B-C OF GOLF 1 

weight of the body) get to work, then some- 
thing is really doing, but we must not at- 
tempt to push them onto the job. The idea 
is that we must get everything we possess 
in the way of strength to the ball, and yet 
never be conscious that we are making the 
effort. There is but one means of accomplish- 
ing this apparent impossibility — balance. 

Let me illustrate still further what I am 
trying to explain by quoting what Mr. 
Marshall Whitlatch, a very able and earnest 
student of golfing theory, has to say on this 
particular point. 

To keep one's balance may seem simple enough, 
and the majority of golfers will say that they do. 
True indeed, they do. They waste the greater part 
of the effort of their swing in doing it. Comparatively 
little of the energy expended goes into the ball; most 
of it goes into a death-grip on the club, one leg trying 
to maintain the balance which the other leg is trying 
to disturb; a stiffening of the arms and shoulders, 
and countless other losses; finally, a wild endeavor 
as the club nears the ball to throw everything into it, 
and get the ball away anyhow. 

To quote again from Mr. Whitlatch: 

Everything is so smooth when you go through your 
ball properly that you are conscious of very little 
effort. But very few beginners can associate ease of 
effort and accuracy with a long ball. They feel that 

16 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 

only the most violent energy will produce the long 
ball. Every time they swing they are making a 
much greater effort than the longest driver I know. 
It is all wasted. 

And again: 

You will feel the power the instant you lose your 
balance in the shghtest degree, and it is too bad that 
you cannot transfer this sense of touch or feeling to 
the club-head. If you could, you would be quickly 
educated to the right idea. 

And finally : 

Mere motion, when not backed up by weight, will 
not transfer much energy to the ball. 

In reading this chapter you may be in- 
clined to say that I frequently repeat my- 
self. Very true, but I am doing it purposely; 
I want to fix it firmly and unalterably in 
your mind that you cannot put power into 
the golfing stroke unless your body balance 
is perfect; and just in proportion as you lose 
that balance the value of the shot will be 
diminished. And you will know of your suc- 
cess or failure long before the ball comes to 
rest, for you will feel it. To put it in another 
way: If the stroke feels all right, it is all 
right. And contrariwise. Beautifully simple, 
isn't it? 

17 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



1 



I ought to warn you, however, that the 
acquirement of this one essential of balance 
and the actual business of playing golf are 
two different things; they are even antago- 
nistic. Many years ago there appeared the 
one immortal classic in the literature of the 
game — I mean The Art of Golf, by Sir W. G. 
Simpson, Bart. Listen to what he says, and 
every word is as true to-day as when it was 
first written. 

Any morning we can see men out aiming at a style 
instead of at a ball. ... If the fools would but reflect 
on a certain passage of Scripture, they might know 
that neither leopard nor golf spotting can be managed 
by taking thought, and that thought will not add 
cubits either to their stature or to their driving. From 
the latter it will take some off. 

Now what did Sir Walter mean? That it 
is no use attempting to master the theory of 
golf, and that our only hope is to go on blindly 
thumping? Well, I fear that the amiable 
baronet did have some such thought in mind, 
and the whole burden of his interesting book 
resolves itself into the one categorical im- 
perative: ^'Hit the ball!'' The trouble is that 
this formula is not sufficient for the adult 
player, who hasn't a game at all, but only 
a collection, more or less large, of bad habits. 

True it is that no ordinary nostrum or quack 

18 



I 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 



smedy is going to cure this unhappy suf- 
ferer; no one can make a golfer out of him 
by altering a grip here, or a stance there; by 
suggesting some new bend of an elbow, or by 
changing the angle of a club-face. These 
things are but the accidents of golf, and do 
not signify. But if we can hit on the fun- 
damental essence of the golfing art, that is 
quite another matter and worth considering. 
The human mind can concentrate beauti- 
fully if you give it one thing at a time, but 
it cannot scatter itself to advantage. My 
theory has been to reduce my own swing, 
and that of the acknowledged masters of 
the game, to their simple elements. By the 
process of elimination I arrive at just one 
thing, that it is common to all good golfing 
styles, and that is body balance. When a 
pupil comes to me for instruction I place 
this indispensable ideal before him both by 
practical exposition and through action- 
photographs of eminent players. Here the 
pupil must help me by trying to imitate, by 
consciously taking thought, by persistently 
endeavoring to reproduce the model which 
I place before his eyes. Once that correct 
body poise is acquired, so that it is taken 
automatically and without conscious voli- 
tion, the big job is finished. At his lessons 

19 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

and in his practice, the pupil takes pains 
to assume his positions and go through his 
exercises with absolute attention to good 
form; he does not care whether he hits the 
ball or not. But when he goes out on the 
actual links to play a real game, the con- 
ditions must be reversed; now he thinks of 
nothing but the ball. It all depends how 
faithfully and intelligently he has practised 
to educate his nerves and muscles to perform 
the proper series of motions. If the latter 
are well and rightly trained they will auto- 
matically reproduce what they have been 
taught. Per contra this is the chief reason 
why a bad habit is so difficult to cure; the 
muscles have been trained to act wrongly. 

If you have ever had the pleasure to see 
Harry Vardon play golf, you must have been 
struck by the total absence of any apparent 
effort. ^^ He makes the game seem so easy!'' as 
some one has said. Of course the secret lies 
in the smoothness and accuracy with which 
the power is applied. The club goes back 
and comes down as though it were grooved, 
as if it were the piston of a steam-engine 
traveling in its highly polished guides. Many 
men have played golf well, but Harry Vardon 
plays it supremely well; his stroke is the 

quintessence of ease, power, and beauty. 

20 



I 



THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING 



Certainly there can be no finer model for 
any aspiring golfer to copy, and I may con- 
dense the sum of all I know about golf, and 
all I try to impart to my pupils, in the one 
simple sentence : 

Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon, 



II 

BUILDING UP THE SWING 

IN the older books on golf it was the in- 
variable custom to picture the swing in 
three positions — the address, the top, and the 
finish. Nowadays we rather smile at such 
simplicity, and the services of the motion- 
picture camera are invoked to show us the 
exact progress of the swing from beginning 
to ending. And yet the old hands were not 
so far out of the way, after all; it is just be- 
cause there is nothing doing in these three 
positions that we ought to study them with 
the utmost care and attention. Certainly 
if our address is radically wrong we are not 
likely to set matters right while proceeding 
from a position of repose to one of intense 
activity. Again, the pose at the top of the 
swing, where there is a definite halt in the 
action, momentary though it be, is im- 
mensely important in our analysis of the 
golfing stroke^ for this shows us at once if 

23 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

the player is in proper body balance. Ask 
a golfing friend to swing up and pause; then 
step behind and give him a gentle push on 
either shoulder. If his balance is not per- 
fect this slight, unexpected touch will cause 
him to lose his equilibrium instantly. The 
trouble is the player has put so marked a 
preponderance of his weight on one foot or 
the other that only a few ounces more pres- 
sure will make him topple over. A golfer 
whose body is balanced throughout the swing 
retains his equilibrium without difficulty^ 
and it requires a good deal more than a touch 
to disturb his poise. This question of bal- 
ance is especially important as the player 
reaches the top of his swing, for now the real 
business is about to begin; if he has to use 
a definite portion of his strength to keep him- 
self from falling over in one direction or an- 
other, that is so much taken off the power 
of the stroke. 

There are certain radical errors which are 
instantly apparent to the experienced in- 
structor when he sees his pupil at the top of 
the swing. If the head and upper part of 
the body have swayed to the right, the trunk 
will be plainly out of the vertical. Such a 
position will look awkward and stiff, and 
both power and accuracy will be wanting in 

23 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

the stroke. This swaying to the right is a 
fault that all the books and all the profes- 
sionals are constantly warning us against. 
Unfortunately the pupil's conscientious effort 
to avoid this mistake is very apt to lead him 
into the opposite error — swaying to the left 
as the club goes up, or ^^waisting/' as I some- 
times call it. This particular variety of bad 
form has received comparatively little at- 
tention from the authorities, and yet the 
fault is even more destructive to the swing 
than swaying to the right. When the player 
is ^^waisting/' his body is bent like a bow, 
the greatest give being at the waist-line; as 
a consequent, the back is hollowed and the 
left shoulder is depressed. The weight of 
the body is kept so far forward that it can- 
not possibly be brought in behind the ball, 
or where it would be of some effective use; 
and players who have this fault in style are 
invariably short, high drivers. ^^Waisting'' 
is one of the most insidious and easily ac- 
quired of golfing errors; conversely, it is 
difficult to eradicate. We will return to this 
subject later on; in the mean time I beg you 
to remember that ^^waisting'' might just as 
well be spelled ^'wasting.'' 

The finish. Here, one may say, there is 
not only nothing doing, but nothing that 

24 



BUILDING UP THE SWING , 

can be done; the business is ended. Why 
bother? This is unquestionably true, and 
yet the finish will tell us a good deal if we 
know how to read its signs. If the stroke 
has been perfectly executed the player will 
finish in an attitude that plainly indicates 
power, grace, and comfort; he will be in 
absolute balance. The great objection to 
^^ finish ^^ photographs is that they are gen- 
erally snapped too late; the player is not 
only through with the actual stroke, but has 
let himself drop into a position of mere rest- 
fulness. Now this sort of picture can teach 
us nothing; the golfer might quite as well 
be sitting down on a bench. What we want 
to see is his attitude at the exact instant up- 
on which his work has been accomplished. 
Curiously enough, the action after the mo- 
ment of impact is almost as important as 
that which takes place at the meeting of 
club-head and ball; certainly if there has 
been anything radically wrong with the swing 
it will show in the wind-up of the stroke. 

Modern high-speed photography does en- 
able us to get a fourth position — that of im- 
pact, and these pictures are most instructive 
to study. It requires great skill, the fastest 
possible lens, and perhaps many exposures to 
obtain a really good impact photograph. 

25 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

The period of action may be placed at one 
two-thousandth of a second, and this willj 
give you some idea of the rate at which the 
club-head is moving when it meets the ball. 
It used to be the accepted theory that the 
player, at the moment of connecting with 
the ball, must be in precisely the same posi- 
tion as in the address. In Advanced Golf, 
with James Braid as the nominal author, 
several series of pictures are given in which 
the address photograph is actually and in- 
tentionally reproduced to illustrate the mo- ' 
ment of striking. Braid, or rather his editor, 
Mr. Henry Leach, says distinctly : 

Theoretically the position at impact ought to be 
exactly the same as in the address ; and even in prac- 
tice it will be found to be as nearly identical as possi- 
ble—in the case of good driving, that is. Therefore, 
for the sake of precision, the third photograph in each 
series of four is a simple repetition of the first, and is 
not a special photograph. 

Nothing can be more ludicrously mislead- 
ing than this statement. I have before me, 
as I write, an instantaneous photograph of 
James Braid coming on the ball, and it is 
as different from his pose at the address as 
chalk is from cheese. The body has swung 
half-way round to face the hole, and the right 

knee is noticeably flexed. 

26 




Fig. 2 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

Turn to the four companion pictures of 
the address, top of swing, impact and finish 
(redrawn from instantaneous photographs), 
and study them carefully. In the address 
(Fig. 2) you will notice the unexaggerated 
stance, the ball lying just a trifle to the left 
of the player's center, and the marked de- 
pression of the right shoulder. Why is the 
right shoulder kept down? Evidently be- 
cause the right hand occupies the lower posi- 
tion on the shaft. 

The illustration of the top of the swing 
(Fig. 3) indicates that the player is in per- 
fect body-poise, as free and graceful as that of 
a bird preparing for flight. Observe that 
there is no suggestion of either swaying or 
waisting in the position. The trunk is ver- 
tical and the back is straight. Although the 
head and body are inclined forward, or tow- 
ard the ball, yet the left shoulder is well up, 
almost touching the chin. Conversely, the 
right shoulder has been kept down, a most 
important point and one that is generally 
overlooked. Of course the left shoulder 
does swing down as the club goes back, but 
at the top of the swing it has recovered to a 
greater extent than most golfers suppose. 

Now we come to the impact picture (Fig. 4) 
and this gives us a realistic idea of what hap- 

28 




;v;^ \^-^;ii^ 



O 



Fig. 3 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

pens at the all-important moment of the 
stroke. Certainly no one would ever im- 
agine that it was an illustration of the ad- 
dress; intense action is visible in every line 
and shade of the drawing. The right knee is 
bent in and the right hip is swinging around, 
while the rigidity of the right arm plainly 
indicates the application of the power. An- 
other interesting point is the straightness of 
the wrists. And yet there are some people 
who still believe that a so-called ^^snap of the 
wrists'' takes place as the club-head meets 
the ball. It is true that the wrists do finally 
turn over, but the turning takes place after 
the period of impact and not before. More- 
over, it is not a consciously made movement. 
Let us now consider another disputed 
point — the part that the body plays at the 
instant of impact. Until very recently it 
was the accepted theory that the down- 
swing was started by the wrists, the arms 
following, and then the big muscles of the 
shoulders, thighs, and knees gradually and 
successively joining in. The idea was that 
if the body entered the swing before the mo- 
ment of impact the stroke must inevitably 
be spoiled; it was a fatal error to let the 
body get to the ball in advance of the hands. 

Now, in the light of really instantaneous 

30 




Fig. 4 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



photography we are compelled to revise our 
theories on this point. Look again at the 
picture of the impact, and you must admit 
that the body has turned decidedly more tow- 
ard the hole than in the address and the 
weight is well on the left foot. And yet the 
ball is barely started on its journey. 

Well, what are we to conclude? My theory 
is that while the body has certainly turned, 
its energy has not actually been put into the 
stroke; it is biding its time to take part in 
the game. It was necessary that the body 
should assume this position of watchful wait- 
ing, for the simple reason that the large, 
heavy muscles of the back and hips cannot 
move so rapidly as the lighter ones of the 
wrists and arms. Consequently the body- 
muscles have to start a little ahead of time, 
as it were, in order to be ready; otherwise, 
they would be left hopelessly behind by the 
faster-moving parts. In this case we should 
be swinging entirely with the arms, and the 
blow would be lacking in pith and punch. 
But remember that this body-turn is made 
without taking conscious thought. If you 
are properly balanced at the top of the swing, 
and come through smoothly, the body tilting 
inward or toward the ball, and the right 

shoulder well down; then the body will tal:c 

33 




?i*— V 



Fi9- 5 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

care of itself and function correctly. On the 
other hand, if you consciously try to get the 
body in this advanced position, you will do 
so by pushing the right shoulder into the 
work ahead of its time; and this means that 
you will raise it at the moment of impact, 
thus destroying the rhythm and taking all 
the ginger out of the stroke. In a true 
swing the motive force comes primarily from 
the right hip and not from the right shoulder; 
keep this basic distinction in mind and you 
will never find yourself smothering the ball. 

The illustration of the finish (Fig. 5) shows 
clearly that the body retains most of its 
original tilt, toward the ball. This is proof 
positive that the right shoulder has swung 
straight through and ^^well under the head,'' 
as one authority puts it. As compared with 
the left shoulder it is still slightly depressed, 
and this again is as it should be. Note the 
decided drop of the right knee; in a bad 
drive the whole body would have lunged 
forward, and the right leg would have been 
pulled very nearly straight. 

In these four pictures, then, you have the 
model upon which to found your own style. 
Perhaps you may feel some doubt of your 
ability to produce an even colorable imita- 
tion, but I tell you not to be pessimistic,] 

34 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

Presuming that you have your eyesight and 
are not an absolute cripple, you can learn the 
correct swing as well as anybody. You won't 
be able to acquire it unconsciously as the 
caddie-boys do, but if you will take the 
trouble to think and are willing to practise 
faithfully you can surely build up a swing 
that will not bring you into discredit even 
off the first tee at St. Andrews. Or you may 
object disconsolately that you have played 
golf badly for many years, that an old dog 
cannot be taught new tricks, and so on, and 
so on. I assure you that nothing in golf is 
incurable, if you really want to be cured, if 
you are ready to throw overboard all your 
old theories and quack medicines and be- 
come again as a little child, without guile 
and without prejudice. Of course the quick- 
est and surest method is that of personal in- 
struction, but first-class teaching is not with- 
in reach of everybody, and I am writing pri- 
marily for the man who can't enroll himseK 
as a pupil in a golf-school and yet sincerely 
desires to better his game. I can at least 
start him on the right path, and his future 
progress and final success will depend upon 
how clearly he understands my theory of 
the game, and how diligently he works put- 
ting my ideas into daily practice, 

35 




Fig. 6 a 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

I prefer to give my initial lessons indoors, 
for then the pupil can have the benefit of a 
long mirror in which to view the steps of his 
progress. If it is possible to fit up a home 
practice court, such as is described in 
Chapter VII, so much the better; other- 
wise, a cork or a round piece of white paste- 
board placed on a cocoa-fiber mat will have 
to do duty for the ball. Really this is not 
a bad plan, anyway, for it will be easier to 
acquire the correct swing if there is no ball to 
think about. For the present we will even 
dispense with the club. 

Stand in front of the long mirror, the body 
inclined slightly forward, the arms hanging 
comfortably at the sides, and the feet holding 
a natural straddle — neither too close together 
nor too far apart. Now, without altering 
the relative positions of your feet, turn the 
head so that you are looking directly behind 
you (Fig. 6 a). You will notice that your 
right knee stiffens under the tension, while the 
left bends inward, accompanied by a slight 
drop. Keep your body and legs in this fixed 
position, but turn your head to the front 
(Fig. 6 b) ; now look at yourself in the glass. 
Except for the do-nothing position of the 
arms, and the fact that the eyes should be 

looking at the ball, you are correctly poised 

37 




Fi3. 6 b 



V^r 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

for the top of the swing. Observe how nat- 
ural and well-balanced is your attitude. Of 
course there is a little feeling of tension, for 
you have wound yourself up like a spring 
by the right-hand twist of the legs, hips, 
trunk, and shoulders. You realize that there 
is a latent potency of action in your position, 
that in the very act of unwinding you will be 
generating energy. Above all, there is no 
tendency to topple over in any direction; 
you feel that you can preserve your equi- 
librium, no matter what happens. You also 
notice that your back is perfectly straight, 
and that your left shoulder is well up. The 
position looks well, and it has been the 
easiest thing in the world to obtain and hold 
it. Simple, isn't it? Why make a mystery 
of it? 

To be sure, we have left the arms and the 
club out of the problem, but we have done 
so purposely. One thing at a time is my 
theory. I have taken the golfing swing to 
pieces merely that I may build it up again; 
first the analytic and then the synthetic 
method, as a scientist would say. Try tak- 
ing this pose again and again; every time you 
do it you are thereby advancing your golfing 
education, getting the ^^feeP' of the business. 
Do it quietly, easily, and with relaxed 

39 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

muscles; don't try to overdo anything. Re- 
member that what you are endeavoring to 
acquire is the sensation of perfect body bal- 
ance. You can't go wrong, particularly if 
you check every successive step in the mirror. 

Our next consideration is the stance or 
position of the feet in relation to each other 
and the ball. About this point there has 
been great argument in the past, very weari- 
some and very fruitless. 

For really it doesn't matter how you stand, 
so long as you do not drift into extremes. 
You may keep both feet exactly parallel to 
the line of the ball's intended flight, or you 
may draw back the right foot for several 
inches, or you may advance the right foot 
for an equal distance. Now no one can dis- 
pute the fact that good golf is perfectly pos- 
sible in all three positions, and I can name 
you first-class players for each one of them. 
But you are a beginner, and as yet you don't 
know your own physical proclivities; you 
can't tell which will be the natural — that is, 
the best — position for you. Therefore I ad- 
vise you to commence with the square 
stance — i. e., both feet parallel to the line of 
play — and then forget about it. Little by ^ 
little your stance will modify itself to suit 

your particular physical build and swing, 

40 



fi 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

and that is all there is to it. Don't try to 
force yourself. Be natural, and if you happen 
to be like Harry Vardon as well, so much the 
better. He stands with the right foot slightly 
advanced, so that he faces a little way in the 
direction of the hole. 

How far apart should the feet be? The 
pseudo-scientific golf-manuals will give you 
carefully drawn diagrams neatly marked off 
in inches and even fractions of an inch. Bet- 
ter not bother with such arithmetical nice- 
ties, but consider these facts: If you get 
your feet too far apart you will stiffen your 
swing unduly and be inclined to dig up the 
earth; if you have them too close together 
you will frequently hit the ball on the top 
instead of on its side, and you will find 
difficulty in maintaining your central balance. 
The obviously proper procedure is to do a 
little experimenting, and determine for your- 
self what degree of straddle is natural and 
comfortable. 

Another point over which much hot air 
has been poured out is the distribution of 
weight between the two feet. It was long 
the accepted theory that the preponderance 
of the player's weight was thrown on the right 
leg as the club went back, and was then 
transferred to the left leg in the down stroke. 

41 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

Mr. P. A. Vaile, who has added so much to 
our scientific knowledge of the game, and 
whose book, Modern Golf, is well worth read- 
ing, combats this old idea with such ve- 
hemence that he really makes a mountain out 
of a molehill. He actually had a weighing- 
machine built, a sort of double scale on which 
the player stood in making his stroke, in 
order to prove that the weight could not :] 
possibly be transferred to the right foot un- j 
less the fault of swaying to the right was also i 
committed. As a matter of fact, the machine 
did not settle the controversy. It could be 
shown that while many good golfers did have 
the weight equally divided at the top of the , 
swing or even on the left leg, quite as many 
more registered a preponderance on the right ; 
leg, the trunk remaining perfectly vertical. 
Look again at the picture of the address ' 
(Fig. 2). The right shoulder is markedly 
depressed, for the simple reason that the right ■ 
hand is below the left in gripping the club, i 
As any one can see, the weight is on the right 
leg. Why shouldn't it remain there as the ! 
club swings back? Impossible, says Mr. i 
Vaile, unless the body sways to the right and j 
out of the vertical plane. Now the other | 
day I was shown a set of photographs taken ^ 
of a first-class golfer in action. In front of ' 

42 J 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

the player had been set up a framework in 
which were stretched a number of vertical 
cords some four inches apart; and these 
cords showed plainly in the plates, providing 
an accurate means of measuring any lateral 
or sideways movement of the player's body. 
At the top of the swing it was unmistakably 
evident that the golfer's trunk, shoulders, 
and head had moved en masse two or three 
inches to the right. Of course the position 
of the right foot had not altered, and the 
body movement was not an inclination from 
the vertical, but in a line parallel with the 
ground. It followed that the bulk of the 
weight must be on the right leg. Theory is 
all very well, but here are facts ocularly 
demonstrated. 

So far as I know this movement of the body 
parallel with the ground has never before 
been noticed nor commented upon. It does 
go to show that in the full driving strokes the 
weight must be well behind the ball or on the 
right leg; moreover, in the down swing this 
parallel movement must be reversed, the whole 
body coming forward with the descent of the 
club. But this is nothing for the player to 
worry about. So long as he is careful to turn 
his body on its vertical axis, neither sway- 
ing nor waisting, he need not concern him- 

'4 43 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



1 



self about the distribution of his weight;^ 
Nature will look after that. All authorities 
agree that after the ball has been hit th J| 
weight is fully on the left leg, but no one 
knows just where the transference takes 
place. If it is too late a slice is probable, or 
at least a want of power. Keep your body 
perfectly balanced throughout and the weight 
will come in when it is needed. You see I 
am always harking back to the one essential 
thing — balance. 

One more point before we take the club 
in hand — the question of the master-eye. 
What do I mean by this? Well, if you are 
being fitted for a shotgun the gunsmith will 
give you a test to discover which is your 
master-eye. If your right eye is in control 
a straight stock is proper; otherwise the 
stock will have to be specially shaped to 
enable you to do the aiming with your left 
eye. The s.ame thing holds true in golf; 
about seventy-five per cent, of players have 
the right eye as the master; with the mi- 
nority it is the left eye that governs the aim. 
The following simple experiment will en- 
able you to discover how the case is with you. 

Take an ordinary business-card and punch 
a hole in it large enough to accommodate 
your forefinger — say the size of a nickel. 

44 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

Hold the card in the hand and, with both 
eyes wide open, look at the ball on the ground 
through the hole. Close one eye, and then 
the other; the eye that continues to see the 
ball through the hole in the card, as at first, 
is the master-eye. Now if the right is your 
master-eye be careful not to turn your head 
to the right during the address and upward 
swing; if you do, the bridge of your nose 
must interfere more or less with your view 
of the ball. This may seem like a small 
point, but it is very important that our view 
of the ball should be clear and unobstructed 
from beginning to end. This is what the 
ancients meant by their continual admoni- 
tion: ^^Keep your eye on the ball!^' And I 
repeat my advice: 

Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon. 



Ill 

BUILDING UP THE SWING (Continued) 

IT is time now to get hold of the club, but 
don't pick it up in any old way. Be- 
ginning with the left hand, imagine that the 
club is a tennis-racquet, and that you are 
about to play a backhand stroke. If you 
have grasped the idea, as well as the club, 
the fingers of the left hand will be entirelj^ 
hidden from your downward gaze; and this 
is the only possible grip by which you can 
get any left-hand strength into the stroke. 
(Of course I am assuming that you you are a 
right-handed player; ^^ southpaws'' will have 
to mentally reverse all these directions.) 
The full position of the left hand is there- 
fore: Back of the hand well over the club- 
shaft; the fingers out of sight; the thumb 
coiled around the handle. 

Now have a friend take his stand at your 
left and hold out the club for you to snatch 

away from him; the idea is that he is an 

46 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

enemy and that you al:-e to seize his weapon 
with your right hand and knock him down. 
Even if you don't go any further than the 
idea, you will instinctively take hold of the 
club, with the fingers of the right hand show- 
ing plainly; the position is virtually the re- 
verse of that with the left hand. Here 
again you will experience a gratifying feeling 
of power; if that friend of yours doesn't 
keep a civil tongue in his head you will let 
him have it anyway. Analyzing the right- 
hand grip in detail, you will notice that the 
back of the hand is well under the handle, 
the fingers are half-way visible, and the 
thumb is wrapped around the shaft. 

You should now be able to put the two 
single-handed grips together, remembering 
to keep the hands as near each other as 
possible, and also taking care to hold the 
club diagonally across the roots of the fingers 
and not buried deeply in the palms. If you 
have followed my directions successfully you 
will now have acquired what is generally 
known as the orthodox, or V-grip. And the 
very next time you meet a golfing friend he 
will undoubtedly advise you to use the over- 
lapping or Vardon grip, and you will quote 
against me my own dictum: ^'Whatever is 

natural and Harry Vardon.'' 

47 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

I need not describe this overlapping grip. 
Probably every other golfer you know uses 
it, and he will be only too glad to demonstrate 
its merits to you. The principal difference 
between it and the V-grip is that the left 
thumb lies down the shaft and not around 
it, while the right thumb may take either 
position. Also the little finger of the right 
hand does not touch the club-handle, but rides 
upon the forefinger of the left hand. The 
grip is a little complicated to describe in 
words, but any user of it can explain its pe- 
culiarities in the shake of a lamb's tail. 
Don't think that I am going to condemn the 
overlapping grip ; that would be very foolish, 
seeing that it is used by Braid, Vardon, 
Taylor, and Duncan. On the other side, 
I could point you to Hilton, Ball, Ouimet, 
Evans, and Dauge the Frenchman (prob- 
ably the longest driver in the world), but 
there are some other considerations that are 
worth taking into account. Let me enu- 
merate them. 

Vardon says himself that he can hit harder, 
using the V-grip, but that he prefers the over- 
lapping because it gives him better control 
over the club. He means, of course, that with 
the V-grip he could obtain a longer ball, 

but he drives quite far enough as it is, and 

48 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

control is a most important thing in first- 
class golf; therefore he uses the overlapping 
grip. Even more significant is what H. H. H. 
(Harold H. Hilton) has to say on this point. 
Mr. Hilton tells us that at one time he played 
as an overlapper, but, finding that he was 
being constantly outdriven by his opponents, 
he went back to the old-fashioned grip. Now 
H. H. H. is certainly under the average in 
height and weight, and he doesn't begin 
to possess the physical strength of such men 
as Braid or Duncan. He needs the actual 
hitting power of the V-grip in order that he 
may hold his own off the tee and through 
the green. Now then, Mr. Short Driver 
(and I include the ladies), how is it with you? 
Are you not unconsciously throwing away 
a good bit of your chances for lining out a 
long ball by sticking to a grip which only 
exceptionally strong and powerful men can 
afford to use? So far as control of the club 
is concerned, I need only refer you again to 
Mr. Hilton. No golfer, living or dead, has 
ever attained more complete mastery over 
his clubs than H. H. H., and he tried and 
discarded the overlapping grip. But I have 
no ax to grind; and if the Vardon grip suits 
you and you don't feel the necessity of getting 
more distance, by all means stick to it. But 

49 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

I am sure that all women and many men wil| 
drive a consistently longer ball with the nat 
ural, or V-grip. 

Aside from the diminution in driving powel 
I find, by experience with my pupils, that the 
overlapping grip has a tendency to interfere 
with the proper functioning of the wrists, 
particularly in the follow- through. The 
thumb (or thumbs) lying straight down the 
shaft necessarily stiffens the wrist-joints, and 
checks their smooth and even action in the 
roll and snap. Of course this criticism does 
not apply to Vardon and other good golfers 
who have learned how to adapt their swing 
to the conditions imposed by the overlapping 
grip; it is the ordinary player who is often 
handicapped without being in the least aware 
of the difficulty against which he is contend- 
ing. I never try to change a pupil's grip 
from overlapping to V, but I place these facts 
before him and let him make up his ow^n 
mind. As the breakfast-food people say, 
^^ There's a reason." 

There are many other varieties of grip, 
such as the cross-handle (left hand below the 
right), the reverse overlapping (the fore- 
finger of the left hand riding the little finger 
of the right hand — a good putting grip), 
and the interlocking (the little finger of the 

00 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

right hand curled around the forefinger of 
the left hand) ; but they may all be reduced 
to the two main classes — V and overlapping. 
The general principle of left hand over the 
club-handle and right hand under obtains 
in every effective grip; if one should be so 
misguided as to play with the left hand under 
and right over, farewell to any chance of 
even passable driving. 

One favorite argument used by the over- 
lappers is that the grip is supposed to make the 
wrists work more in unison. Baseball-players 
and tree-fellers, please note. Why the thick- 
ness of one's little finger should bring about 
all this difference I, for one, don't see; but, 
for the sake of argument, we will grant the 
contention; then comes the question of why 
we want the wrists to work in unison, when 
admittedly it is the right hand that supplies 
most of the driving energy. Surely a better 
plan would be to strengthen the left arm so 
that it could do its fair share. You can prove 
that this can be done, in one week's time, by 
correctly swinging a club backward and for- 
ward for five minutes each day. Then it 
has been argued that the overlapping grip 
weakens the right hand, thereby equalizing 
matters. Again I ask: if you had two mules, 
one weak, the other strong, on which would 

51 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

you put the greater load? The lower hand I 
is the piston, so don't weaken your source! 
of power, whatever you do. A left-handed I 
golfer plays from that position because, in 
his case, the left hand is the stronger of the | 
two. 

Finally, I may point out that a grip is not 
necessarily good because it feels comfortable 
when one is addressing the ball. As a matter 
of fact, a correct grip (left hand over, right 
hand under) feels a trifle uncomfortable, 
at least, at first. But that is not the point. 
What we are trying to obtain is ease, power, 
and freedom in the swing; the address doesn't 
matter, for nothing is doing there. So much, 
then, for the grip — a small thing, but still an 
important one. 

If you are so fortunate as to possess an 
indoor practice court, continue your lessons 
under cover, so as to have the advantage of 
the long mirror in which to view your prog- 
ress and check up your mistakes. Other- 
wise, find a quiet corner of the links or pre- 
empt an open space of lawn. If you can 
conveniently do so, use a cocoa-fiber mat for 
driving and not sand tees. The ball sits 
sufficiently well upon the mat to enable you 
to pick it up cleanly, and you won't get into 

52 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

e beginner's bad habit of building a small 
mountain out of wet sand by way of a tee, 
land so never learning how to play an 
{Ordinary brassey shot. 

' Don't start driving with an iron club. At 
the golf-school I give a mid-iron or a jigger 
to the absolute novice, but then I only let 
them play half-shots, the club not going be- 
yond the vertical in the back swing. This 
preliminary half-shot is merely a try-out, 
the object being to get the eye to work in 
sympathy with the hands. 

I say, don't start off with an iron, although 
it looks easier, and, in a sense, is easier. 
I often have pupils tell me that they drive as 
far with their cleeks and driving-irons as they 
do with wood. Very true, but the reason 
is that they have never acquired a correct 
swing, and one can do more brute forcing with 
iron than with wood. Until a player gets 
the ^^feel" of hitting a ball with his wooden 
driver or brassey, he never knows the real 
pleasure of driving; and, of course, it is an 
absolute fact that first-class long driving can 
only be brought off with the wooden clubs. 
A cleek may be as long in the shaft as a driver, 
and of the same weight, but iron is an in- 
elastic substance, while wood is highly re- 
silient; and this last quality means driving 

53 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

power. I may as well point out just here that 
there is no real, no essential difference in the 
full swing with wood and with iron. Some 
ultra -theoretical writers on golf have en- 
deavored to draw a subtle distinction be- 
tween the two. They will tell you, for in- 
stance, that with the wooden driver the ball 
is swept off the tee, while with u-on the 
stroke partakes of the nature of the base- 
ball hit, delivered with muscles under full 
tension. All this is pure bunk. The essential 
elements of the swing are precisely the same 
in either case, but our sensations in striking 
are different, for the simple reason that wood 
is elastic and iron is not so. 

Begin then with wood, but since the driver 
is generally the longest-shafted club in the 
bag, it is so much the more difficult to use 
with accuracy; the shorter the club, within 
reasonable limits, the easier it is to hit the 
ball truly. I advise you, therefore, to go to 
a good dealer, or to your club professional, 
and get fitted with a wooden spoon. This 
is a useful tool to have in your bag, and you 
will find it much handier than the regulation 
driving-club. Its face is lofted or laid back, 
so that it picks up the ball without difficulty, 
and its length is about the same as that of a 
driving-iron. It is surprising how much 

54 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

quicker you can get the hang of hitting the 
ball by using a short club. Of course, as 
you improve, and when you begin playing 
actual matches, you will graduate to wooden 
clubs of the normal pattern. 

The ball, or the cork representing it, is 
lying on the mat. What position are you 
to take in relation to it? 

Premising that you are standing square or 
with the feet about parallel to the line of in- 
tended play, the ball should be just a trifle 
to the left of your center. (Study the pic- 
ture of the address in Fig. 2). Never mind 
about measurements in inches; just try for 
the general effect. And now how far away 
from the ball should you be? 

Here again common sense is a better guide 

than a foot-rule. You must bend slightly 

over toward the ball, and your hands must 

not be stretched out stiffly so as to make a 

straight line with the shaft of the club. Yet 

this latter mistake is a common one with 

the middle-aged beginner. The proper form 

is to have the arms extended downward and 

kept fairly close to the body; they will thus 

make a slight angle with the club-shaft. 

Look again at the picture of the address and 

note that the right shoulder is emphatically 

depressed. 

55 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

With these directions in mind, take up 
your position so as to have the toe (or the 
forward end) of the club-head lying immedi- 
ately behind the ball. Shuffle around until 
you feel that you are standing square to the 
line of fire, that your arms are just comfor- 
tably flexed, and that you are aiming at the 
ball with the toe of the club-head. Taking 
these precautions, you should now be cor- 
rectl}^ placed in relation to the ball, and in a 
position to give it a good, hard smack. 

Why put the toe of the club behind the 
ball and not the full width of the striking- 
face? The question is a natural one; the 
answer is a simple one. The club-head, 
fixed at the end of a long shaft, possesses 
considerable weight. You take it back from 
the ball in one definite path, but when it 
comes down its weigh|; generates a percep- 
tible amount of centrifugal force, and this 
tends to make it travel outside the curve of 
its original backward motion. Consequently, 
if you address the ball with the middle of 
the club-head, you will be apt to make the 
actual impact connection on the heel or 
socket-end of the club, and this means a 
bad shot — generally a slice or a curving of 
the ball's fflght to the right. Experienced 

golfers are aware of this tendency and coun- 

56 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

teract it by a slight, very slight, pulling in of 
the arms as the club comes down. But it is 
extremely easy to overdo this corrective, and 
again the result is a slice. I prefer to provide 
my pupils with an smtidoi^e before the disease 
has a chance to get in its deadly work; the 
really confirmed slicer rarely rids himself 
entirely of his pet vice. By aiming with the 
toe, and actually trying to hit with the toe, 
the ball and club will come together squarely 
and fairly; the result is a long, straight shot. 
I might go on to show that the stroke made 
in this way also confers the valuable quality 
of in-spin upon the ball, but such consider- 
ations are a trifle too technical and advanced 
for our present purpose. 

Suppose we remove the ball once again, 
replacing it with a cork or a round piece of 
white cardboard. Take up your position, 
as already indicated, the body slightly bent 
forward from the waist-line and the right 
shoulder depressed. Now, without altering 
this body bend and right-shoulder droop, 
bring the club over the right shoulder by a 
flexion of the wrists; the movement is pre- 
cisely the same that you would adopt if 
you were about to drive a pile or pound in a 
tent-peg or split a stick of wood. Let us call 

this the ^Hent-pegger's^' position (Fig. 1). 

57 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

Be sure to keep the right shoulder down even 
after the club has been raised. 

You will find this position perfectly nat- 
ural and very easy. Now proceed by mak- 
ing a half-turn to the right, keeping the for- 
ward bend of the body constant, the head 
motionless, and the eyes fixed on the cork 
or bit of paper. The left knee must be al- 
lowed to give inward in response to the strain 
of the turning movement. Look at yourself 
in the long mirror; there you are poised at 
the top of the swing, ready for a full drive. 
Notice how straight your back is and how 
naturally 3^ou are holding the club with the 
wrists underneath and the left arm pretty 
straight; above all, realize that you are ab- 
solutely in balance and so able to put all 
your strength into the coming blow. 

Well, this is all there is to that apparently 
complicated series of motions which we called 
the back swing. Really, there isn't anything 
very difficult about it once you get the 
proper '^feeP' of the business. Try putting Sj 
yourself into this tent-pegger's position time " 
and time again, so that you can be sure that 
you are going through the motions correctly; 
then make certain you are right by a glance 
at the long mirror. Of course this is not the 

way in which the club is taken back in ac- 

58 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

tual play, and yet it is perfectly possible to 
drive a long ball from the tent-pegger's posi- 
tion. Not long ago I had a pupil to whom 
I gave this exercise as a corrective to his 
fault of ^/waisting/^ or swaying to the left. 
He took to it enthusiastically, and I sub- 
sequently heard that he had been using it 
in serious matches on the links. But he only 
laughed when I gently remonstrated; he 
told me that he had been winning cups play- 
ing in this fashion and that the proof of the 
pudding was in the eating. As a matter of 
fact, I don't think that one can hit a ball 
quite so hard or quite so far from the tent- 
pegger's position, but it is certainly the best 
of practice. Remember to keep the right 
shoulder depressed throughout the full series 
of motions. I have said this before, but I 
repeat myself purposely; it is all-important. 
Now that you know what it feels like to be 
poised at the top of the swing, return to your 
original position of the address. This time, 
instead of lifting the club straight over your 
right shoulder, carry it out to the right, the 
wrists turning naturally and the left knee 
bending inward as the body twists to the 
right. Stop when the club reaches the 
horizontal behind your head, and look at 
yourself in the glass. You ought to be in 

5 59 



k 



A-B-C OF GOLF 






the same balanced position as when you were 
practising the tent-pegger's stroke. If not, 
something has gone wrong and you will do! 
well to go back to the tent-pegging exercise 
until you have discovered your error. I 
honestly believe that the tent-pegger's stroke 
is the one infallible means of teaching a player 
the correct back swing, and that practice 
with it will make anybody perfect. Don't 
worry about the turning of the wrists. Note 
how naturally they assume the proper posi- 
tion in executing the tent-pegger's swing; 
well, they will do the same thing in the regu- 
lar stroke if only you do not tighten the 
muscles into hard knots. One great difficulty 
in golf is to keep the muscles from setting 
themselves, from becoming stiff and rigid 1 
as the club goes back. The easier you can 
swing, the more effectively you will be able 
to apply your strength. This sounds like 
a paradox, but it isn't one at all. The muscles 
have to be loose and flexible at the begin- 
ning of the golfing stroke, but they tighten 
to their utmost tension at the moment of 
impact, and not until then. 

If you are in perfect balance at the top 
of the swing, the rest is easy; all you have 
to do is to bring the club down and hit the 
ball away. But I must warn you against 

60 



I 




Fig. 7 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

one misconception: Don't get it into your 

head that the golf drive is an overhand hit, 

;g as in baseball or in the overhead stroke at 

2, tennis. The true golf hit is an underhand one, 

like the second-baseman's short, quick throws 

-, to first. Stand directly behind a first-class 

golfer (asking his permission to do so) and 
watch him line out a long ball. At the end 
of the stroke you will notice that his right 
shoulder is down and that his whole body is 
leaning inward or toward the spot where the 
ball lay (Fig. 7). Not until the club has 
come almost to rest behind his back will you 
see him straighten up into the conventional 
position usually shown in photographs. Now 
watch a bad player driving; everything will 
be just the reverse. As the duffer comes 
through you will see his right shoulder 
swinging up and his body falliijg outward 
or away from the ball. Now there is all the 
difference in the world between these two 
finishes. The good player hits underhand, 
and so he has been able to get his full power 
to the ball; the bad player hits overhand, 
and he can't possibly reach out after the 
ball as it leaves the tee. Perhaps this may 
explain why many feminine golfers drive a 
respectable long ball even in comparison 
with good men players. It is well known that 

62 



BUILDING UP THE SWING 

a woman cannot throw a missile with a free 
overhand motion, and her anatomical de- 
ficiency in this respect handicaps her for any 
athletic exercise in which the overhand is 
important. But her underhand is just as 
free as a man's, and so she holds her own, 
at least in proportion to her muscular 
strength, in such games as tennis and golf. 
Most cricket drives are of the underhand 
variety, and consequently English women 
can make a respectable showing at the wicket, 
and may even do underhand bowling. In 
baseball, on the contrary, both the batting 
and the throwing are principally overhand, 
and the feminine baseball-player is a joke. 
You will hear a good deal about the ^^ fol- 
low-through '' from professional teachers and 
your fellow-players, but there isn't any real 
mystery in the business. Keep the right 
shoulder down and the body tilted inward, 
and the club-head will follow through; it 
can't help itself. Again, you see it is merely 
a question of balance. When you finish in 
the right way there is no tendency to lose 
your equilibrium, and you will not have 
to expend a considerable portion of your 
strength in trying to maintain it. You won't 
have to think about following through or 
timing, or the snap of the wrists, or any 

63 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



ai 



other of the old fetishes so impossible to 
obey in actual practice. The whole secret 
lies in the correct balance of the body; given 
that, and everything else will come right. 



i 



Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon. 



I 



IV 

THE LONG GAME 

AGAIN we are standing on the teeing- 
^ ground, and this time we may venture 
to put down a ball. Now let us rehearse 
very briefly the things we have to think 
about. 

Stand with both feet parallel to the line 
of play, but don't worry if the right foot 
wants to edge a little nearer. When we come 
to take up the short game we will find that 
the right foot must be advanced decidedly, 
so that the player's body is half facing the 
hole. Even in the long game it gives some 
people a feeling of confidence to turn slightly 
in the direction of the intended flight of the 
ball. On the other hand, if you think that 
you can get more ^^pep" into the stroke by 
drawing the right foot slightly back, don't 
hesitate to do so. The important point is 
not to exaggerate anything. I have seen 
players stand with the right foot so far with- 

05 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

drawn that the ball seemed doomed to go 
over the right -field foul-line fence. It is 
possible to drive straight from this position, 
but the stunt is a difficult one; catch the 
ball a hair's-breadth too soon or too late and 
trouble is inrnaediately at hand. Why make 
the game hard for yourself? 

Since the club lies about equidistantly 
between the feet, the ball will be just to the 
left of the center line — I mean from the 
player's viewpoint. You should be standing 
at a comfortable distance away, with your 
arms hanging clear of your body and making 
an obtuse angle with the club-shaft. One 
method of arriving at the proper distance is 
to rest the end of the club-handle against 
the lowest button of your waistcoat, the 
club-head lying naturally on the ground. 
This is the minimum. Now stretch out the 
arms to their fullest extent. This is the 
maximum, and half-way between these two 
extremes will be about right for the man of 
normal build. 

Be sure that the club-head is resting 
solidly on the ground. One often sees golfers 
addressing the ball with the toe of the club- 
head perceptibly cocked up; they are only 
handicapping themselves. It is well to get 
the ^^pro,'' or some really expert friend, to 

m 



0( 



Fig. 8 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

advise you as to the lie of your wooden 
clubs. The idea is that when you are stand- 
ing at the proper distance from the ball the 
club-head will then be squarely on the 
ground. Consequently, if you happen to 
be well above or well below the average 
stature you may require a club whose natural 
lie is expressly fitted to your physique. 

The ball should be addressed with the 
toe of the club-head and not with the middle 
of its striking-face. This is a purely em- 
pirical precaution to prevent your hitting 
with the heel of the club-head, a very common 
fault. If you find in practice that you are 
still inclined to ^^heel/' place another ball 
some three or four inches from the ball you 
intend to hit — that is the two balls to be in 
line, the one nearest to you being the ball 
you wish to play (Fig. 8). Now, if you are 
allowing the centrifugal force generated in 
the down swing to carry the club-head out- 
side the proper line of play, you will surprise 
yourself by hitting both balls at once. Keep 
on trying until you can drive the near ball 
cleanly away, without disturbing the other 
in the slightest. This is splendid practice 
for training the eye, and it will absolutely 
cure you of heeling with the wooden clubs 
and of socketing with the iron ones, Let 

68 



I THE LONG GAME 

me point out that there are three predis- 
posing causes tending to make you heel, 
while it is almost impossible for a player to 
unintentionally catch the ball on the toe. 
Firstly, then, centrifugal force carries the 
club-head outward; secondly, your arms 
naturally strive to straighten at the instant 
of impact; thirdly, you are already bending 
toward the ball and the exertion of hitting 
may easily cause you to fall in still more, 
particularly if you are a bit slow^ in getting 
the weight on your left foot. Slicing, the 
dread enemy of many golfers, is nearly al- 
ways associated with heeling, and it is no 
exaggeration to assert that fully fifty per- 
cent, of all bad shots are directly due to hit- 
ting with that part of the club-face which 
lies next to the shaft — i. e., the heel. Address 
with the toe of the club and you will actually 
hit with the exact center of the face; so 
the fault corrects itself automatically. 

Of course we want to hit the ball on the 
side and not above its center — ^Hopping it," 
to use the technical term. Here is a little 
dodge which will cure you of topping and at 
the same time enable you to cultivate the 
follow-through. 

Address the ball in the usual way, and then 
have some one remove it a foot to the left, 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

the club remaining grounded in the original 
position. Now, when you make the stroke, 
you will have a better view of the side of the 
ball than of its top; moreover, you will be 
obliged to reach out to connect with it. 
Don't overdo this cure; it is only intended 
to temporarily help nature — poor nature! 

As a remedy for the very ordinary vice of 
drawing in your hands at the moment of 
impact, arrange two balls so that the one 
nearer to you lies about four inches farther 
to the left, the measurement being taken on 
the diagonal line. Then try to drive the 
farther ball without disturbing the other one. 

The grip is easy to remember — left hand 
over and right hand under. 

If you watch a good golfer about to drive, 
you will notice that he makes a brief flourish 
with the club-head immediately above the ball. 
This is called the waggle ; it is useful in help- 
ing to loosen up the muscles. Upon its com- 
pletion the club-head is momentarily grounded 
behind the ball, a final period of preparation, 
and then withdrawn for the back swing. 

If you have faithfully practised the tent- 
pegger's swing, you will know what it feels 
like when you arrive at the top of the stroke. 
But you have first to get there after the 
orthodox fashion. 

70 



I 



I 



THE LONG GAME 



Take the club back with the wrists, the 
body turning as the strain begins to be felt. 
Don't stiffen your muscles, and don't get in 
a hurry and try to force matters. If you will 
remember to keep your right shoulder down, 
your left shoulder up, and your stomach 
muscles in, you will arrive in good shape at 
the top of the swing. I should have reminded 
you, in speaking of the address, to con- 
sciously depress the right shoulder and to 
keep it down. This shoulder business is 
really very important, and I want you to get 
in mind: First, that the club-head, before 
and after impact, must be traveling hori- 
zontally and as close to the ground as pos- 
sible; secondly, that your arms are the con- 
necting links between your shoulders and 
the head of the club ; and, finally, that your 
shoulders must parallel the horizontal path 
in which the club-head is moving. If these 
two planes are kept parallel, the propelling 
force will be exerted in the direct line of im- 
pact: result, a good, clean hit. Conversely, 
if you do not keep these planes parallel, you 
will destroy the relation that should exist 
between them: result, a dig into the ground 
or a top; at best, a high ball with a short 
carry and no run. This is pretty technical 
and scientific, and you need not worry if you 

71 



A-B-C OP GOLF 

don't understand it. But at least you will 
believe me that it is essential to keep that 
right shoulder down from the beginning of 
the address to the end of the follow-through. 
As a corollary, the left shoulder stays up; 
in any event you must not dip it. Vardon, 
Braid, Taylor, and all the best players have 
the left shoulder up close to the chin at the 
top of the swing; and it was the shoulder 
that came up, not the chin that went down 
to meet it. I mention this last point because 
it is very easy to deceive oneself in trying to 
imitate a photographic model. Here is where 
good personal coaching scores over instruc- 
tion by illustration alone. 

You need not take too much thought 
about your wrists as the club goes back. 
If you will extend the club horizontally from 
your shoulders, straight out in front of you, 
and keep on swinging it in a circle to the back 
of your neck, you will give yourself a prac- 
tical demonstration of proper wrist action. 
The tent-pegger's position will show you how 
the wrists should look and feel at the top of 
the swing. 

As the body swings around on its vertical 
axis (the spine), something must give way, 
unless you are a professional contortionist 

with india-rubber ligaments and gutta-percha 

72 



THE LONG GAME 

muscles. That something will be your left 
leg; it knuckles in at the knee, and this 
action pulls the left heel off the ground. 
Don^t worry about this, either; above all, 
don't begin your back swing by bending the 
left knee and consciously raising the heel. 
The proper procedure is to let the turning 
of the body and the torsional strain thereby 
set up, bring about the footwork as a nat- 
ural and inevitable consequent. At the same 
time the right leg will stiffen under the strain. 
It is all a matter of give and take, one set 
of muscles automatically bracing as another 
set relaxes. And so, when you come through 
the ball, you get the reverse effect produced 
by the unwinding; the right knee knuckles 
in and drops while the left knee straightens 
and stiffens. All this I have said before, 
but the essence of the A-B-C method is repe- 
tition and reiteration until the lesson is 
thoroughly learned. The great, the all- 
important thing is the acquiring of balance 
and the retaining of this equilibrium through- 
out the stroke. 

Once again we are at the top of the swing, 
and now I'Want to say a word or two about a 
certain concentration of forces which ought to 
take place at just this point. In default of a 

better term I will call it the ^^ gather," and, 

73 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



1 



SO far as I know, it has never been described 
before, at least with any definiteness. It is 
simply the marshaling of the player's mental 
and physical powers for the supreme effort 
of hitting the ball away; for an instant every- 
thing hangs in the balance; then, crack! 
and the tension is released to perform its 
most effective work. It is quite possible to 
go through the motions of the golf swing and 
yet have no suspicion of ^^ gather" in the 
business; the result must be disappointing. 
Watch the face of a player who does concen- 
trate his forces for the stroke, and you will 
see visible evidence of his determination to 
get that ball safely away. Perhaps his fore- 
head will wrinkle into a deep V over the eyes, 
or his teeth will be pressed tightly down on 
the nether lip. Instantaneous photographs of 
a sprinter breasting the tape, or of a pole- 
vaulter clearing the bar, show similar signs 
of almost agonizing stress; in all fields of 
athletic endeavor there is one supreme mo- 
ment of concentration when the player goes 
^^all out" for the task before him. 

Naturally the '^gather" is primarily de- 
pendent upon the mental attitude; we won't 
concentrate unless we are desirous, oathfuUy 
desirous, of success. Yet the process has 

its purely physical features; we may often 

74 



THE LONG GAME 

detect its presence in a barely perceptible 
pause at the top of the swing. Some golfers, 
indeed, make a distinct break between the 
upward and downward parts of the stroke; 
it is then that they are gathering themselves 
for their best effort. Read what Vardon 
has to say in his description of Arnaud 
Massy's swing. To quote: 

Arnaud Massy has a curious custom ... it has 
aroused a lot of comment ... I have heard it described 
as Massy's pigtail, Massy^s twiddley - bit, and what 
not. At the top of the swing Massy makes a strange 
little flourish, a circling in the air, with the head of 
his club. Whereas most men having gone up, promptly 
start to come down again, Massy waits to perform this 
twiddley-bit. 

Vardon seems to be under the impression 
that this mannerism of Massy's has something 
to do with the correct grooving of the club 
for the downward swing, but I consider it 
to be his method of concentrating for the 
stroke; the twiddley-bit is Massy's form of 
^^gather.'' 

Again remove the ball and let us have one 
final trial swing. Remember that you are to 
keep the bend of the body constant from 
start to finish. Many a good shot is ruined 
by the player pulling himself up at the top 
of the swing back. Try, as you come through, 
6 75 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



to lightly graze the surface of the cocoa mat 
with the club-head; this is fine practice 
for the eye and will quickly show you if 
you are falling forward (result, sclaffing, or 
hitting the ground behind the ball) ; or fall- 
ing backward (result, topping, or hitting the 
ball on its upper side). There is a great deal 
in correct mental impressions, so endeavor to 
picture the stroke as coming on the ball from 
behind. The power is applied chiefly through 
the turning forward of the right hip immedi- 
ately before the club-head connects with 
the ball. Look again at the photograph of 
the impact in Fig. 4 and study it carefully. 
If the right hip doesn't come through at 
this precise instant, the heavy body muscles 
will be left hopelessly behind; they won't 
get into the swing, and consequently the 
stroke will be made almost entirely with the 
arms, and this means short and uncertain 
driving. 

The power of the stroke is also largely de- 
pendent upon how long the club-head is 
moving horizontally with the ground; that 
is, the plane of force must coincide with the 
plane of the ball's initial flight, so far as that 
is humanly possible. Mr. Marshall Whit- 
latch calls this the ^^ master path," and the 

mental picture is that of a horizontal line 

76 



* 



THE LONG GAME 

beginning about four inches back of the ball 
and ending a foot beyond the spot from which 
it was struck. Now the obvious theory of 
the golf swing considers the club as a pendu- 
lum, the ball being hit at the lowest point of 
the circle. This theory might do very well 
if the club were moved by mechanical means, 
and never allowed to swerve by so much as 
a hair's-breadth from its appointed orbit. 
But the golfer — at least the ordinary twelve- 
handicap golfer — is not a machine and must 
have some margin of error; consequently 
the club-head must get down to the level 
of the ball in plenty of time to insure that the 
arms are at full stretch; and this horizontal 
path should be prolonged until it is certain 
that the full force of the blow has been com- 
municated to the ball. There is more of a 
drag or braking effect in connection with the 
ball than most players are aware of ; the ball 
hangs for a momentary period of time on the 
club-face, and unless we keep up the pressure, 
the resiliency present in the ^'rubber core'^ 
is not used to its full advantage. If the club 
merely reaches the ball and is instantly 
pulled up out of the line of flight, the elastic 
sphere, momentarily compressed by the force 
of impact, has nothing upon which to recoil. 

Drive a court-tennis ball against the net and 

77 



w 



I 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



1 



it falls dead; let it hit the end wall and it flies 
back as though endowed with new life and en- 
^ ergy. This is nothing more than the quality 

of resiliency coming into being through the 
agency of a hard, unyielding substance. 

Perhaps you may wonder what all this has 
to do with elementary golf ; well, I am merely 
trying to give you a reason for the beautiful 
flight of a well-hit ball and to set before 
you the mental picture of what happens at 
the supreme moment of impact. If a man 
possesses any brains at all he will want to 
know the why and wherefore of the task set 
before him, and the more fully he under- 
stands the theory of what he is trying to do, 
the better are his chances of ultimate suc- 
cess. Moreover, I firmly believe that a great 
deal of bad golf is owing to the fact that the 
player has formed a wrong idea of the art of 
driving a golf -ball; his mental picture of the 
stroke is defective or distorted, and so he is 
led to use improper methods, the results 
being inevitably disappointing. Of course, 
in the actual playing of the game the player 
does not have to keep a great amount of 
theory in mind; indeed, he cannot do so and 
have any attention left to bestow upon the 
ball. We must therefore reduce our mental 

processes to the minimum, and I have al- 

78 



THE LONG GAME 

ready told you my idea of the one essential 
thing — balance. For if you do succeed in 
maintaining your body and head in perfect 
equilibrium, you will be able to bring through 
your swing with speed, accuracy, and power; 
and this means that the ball must go; there 
is no way for it to escape so long as the laws 
of physics remain in force. 

In teaching my pupils I always try for 
the same result, but to reach it I may be ob- 
bliged to use quite different methods. One 
student catches the idea at a glance, while 
another may have to walk clear round the 
block to understand what I am driving at. 
Consequently, in my description of the golf- 
ing swing, I sometimes emphasize one point 
and sometimes another, but the diverse 
roads all lead to the same goal. I tell Mr. 
Jones to hunch up his left shoulder on the 
back swing, and I impress upon Mp. Smith 
the necessity of keeping down the right 
shoulder. The end achieved is the same; 
I have merely adapted the specific directions 
to fit the particular cases. Now it would 
seem by this time that all my readers should 
have grasped my general theory of the swing, 
but to make assurance doubly sure I will 
give you still another ^^ setting-up'' exercise, 

as they say in the army, 

79 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

Stand straight up, the feet planted firmly 
at a moderate straddle, and then imagine 
that you are going to bestow a smart right- 
handed slap, with the open palm, on the 
countenance of a man standing at your left 
front. Swing back naturally and easily; 
then let him have it. What has happened? 
Why, your body has turned on a strictly 
vertical pivot; your left shoulder has been 
kept well up ; your right shoulder has swung 
freely under as you came through; every- 
thing has been concentrated, smooth, and 
powerful. In other words, you have now 
executed all the essential movements en- 
tering into the golf swing; surely you found 
nothing very mysterious or unduly difficult 
in the manoeuver. Suppose you repeat the 
exercise, bending the body at an easy angle 
from the hips and keeping this same inclina- 
tion throughout the action. This, too, is 
ridiculously easy. Join the two hands to- 
gether in the natural palm-to-palm clasp 
(right thumb over left thumb); now, still 
bending forward, let your imaginary enemy 
have it for the third time. This is the golf 
swing in its entirety; and once you have mas- 
tered its principles of poise and balance, 
you may take club in hand and proceed to 
drive actual golf-balls with every prospect of 

80 



|) 



THE LONG GAME 

success. To get started right is more than 
half the battle in golf, as it is in life. 

This is an elementary manual, and I shall 
not attempt to initiate you into the deeper 
mysteries of the so-called ^^ advanced golf/' 
What earthly use is it for a novice to endeavor 
to master the refinements of pulling and slic- 
ing at will when he cannot hit a ball down 
the middle of the course, except by pure 
bull-luck? Let the A-B-C golfer be content 
with learning how^ to hit a ball clean and 
with all his natural force; once the foundation 
is properly laid the upper stories can be 
added as the necessity for their use arises. 
Even in the event of a strong wind blowing, 
we need not worry about our ability to coun- 
teract or make use of the air-currents. It 
is surprising how little actual effect the wind 
has upon a really well-hit ball; strike ac- 
curately and smoothly, keeping your body 
in easy balance, and you will haVe no oc- 
casion for ^^wind-cheaters'' and ^^push"- 
shots, and the other shibboleths that are 
spoken of with such reverence in the com- 
fortable seclusion of the ^^ Nineteenth Hole." 

So, too, in the full shots through the green. 
If you have practised driving corks and balls 
from a cocoa mat, you will be quite compe- 
tent to deal with the ordinary lie on grass. 

81 



w 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

If the ball is not sitting cleanly you may take 
p an iron instead of wood, for the narrow blade 

a will inspire you with confidence in your 

ability to get down to the ball. In a really 
^ bad lie you will have to employ some sort 

1 of forcing-shot — jerk, push, or whatever you 
^ like to call it — but I don't advise you to con- 

2 sciously add these fancy weapons to your 
^ arsenal; at any rate, don't be in too great 
; a hurry to do so. Master the swing, the 

true swing, and everything else will come in 
due time and almost of its own accord. 

Golfers of the old Scottish school seldom 
used sand in playing from the tee, but were 
satisfied with placing the ball cleanly on the 
turf. Mr. S. C. Everard tells of a well-known 
Irish player who, in order to cure himself of 
topping, went so far as to ^Hee his ball in 
a hole,'' to quote his own delicious Hiber- 
nicism. ^^For then I must get down to them," 
he used to say. Such a procedure is perhaps 
too heroic for these degenerate days, but my 
pupils, having demonstrated to their own 
satisfaction that it is very easy to drive 
balls off a cocoa mat, will not fall into the 
error of making a small sand mountain for 
a tee. 

Returning for an instant to the question of 
grip, I think there is a decided tendency 

82 



THE LONG GAME 

among golfers to revive the vogue of the 
orthodox, or V-grip. When I was last at 
St. Andrews I noticed that a number of well- 
known amateurs had discarded the overlap- 
ping fashion and had returned to their first 
love. Such things as stance, grip, and shape 
of putter are largely imitative; golfers are 
like a flock of sheep — always ready to follow 
a leader. After Mr. Travis's famous vic- 
tory at Sandwich every other golfer in the 
United Kingdom added a ^^Schenectady" 
putter to his kit of tools. 

There is one elementary piece of advice 
for playing the long game that I must not 
forget to give. The harder the wind blows, 
the worse the lie, the more difficult the carry 
— let your swing be proportionately easy 
and well within your powers. For if you 
become excited you will set your muscles, 
and that rigidity will interfere with body 
balance. Put all your attention upon keep- 
ing your equilibrium, and you have a far 
better chance of bringing off your shot. 

Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon, 

4 



Tni<: (iUATlTKR GAME 

TIIK title of this chapter may seem a, 
little puzzling to soine of my readers; 
they may even ask if I haven't missed a step 
or two, for surely there must he an intermedi- 
ate stage between the full driving-stroke and 
what are known as approaeh-shots. Pro- 
founder critics may quote to me tfrom the 
golfing text-books — what about the half- 
shot? And there is ''Badminton'' Golf, in 
which Mr. Horace Hutchinson distinctly de- 
scribes the three-quarters stroke, and then 
distinctly warns us not to attempt it. Wc^ll, 
what am I to say? 

Now it is a fact that these fine-shaded 
variations used to be insisted upon, but the 
theory which gave them birth was a false 
and misleading one. You cannot take a 
golf swing and cut it up into halves and quar- 
ters as though it were an orange. Clolf, like 
Gaul, is divided into three parts only, and 

84 



I 

I THE QUARTER GAME 

I they are the long game, the short or quarter 
'? game, and putting. When distance is the 
all-important desideratum, we hit as hard as 
we can, and the actual length of our back 
swing depends upon our physical make-up, 
temperament, previous apprenticeship at 
other athletic pursuits, etc., etc. The St. 
Andrews player of the old school lets his 
club swing so far that it seems to be hanging 
straight down his back; the reformed crick- 
eter or baseballer drives with what ^^Bad- 
minton" would call a half -swing. And 
yet, when the balls come to rest, they are 
quite likely to be side by side. As a boy, I 
can remember seeing golfers whose back 
swing was so long that the player was in 
danger of knocking the ball off the tee with 
the leaded side of his club-head. Nowadays 
the swing has noticeably shortened, and the 
club seldom falls below the horizontal at 
the back of the player's head; overswinging 
is recognized as a probable weakness, not 
commended as an outstanding virtue. 

Within reasonable limits, then, the actual 
length of the swing in the long game is not 
of supreme importance. Some players re- 
quire plenty of room, as it were, in which to 
get up steam; others again play naturally, 
with a shorter, crisper action. If we are put- 

85 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

ting all we have into the stroke we are play- 
ing the long game, no matter to what par- 
ticular segment of the full circle our swing 
may be compared. 

Once we are within potential striking dis- 
tance of the putting-green the problem changes 
entirely. We know that it requires no great 
exertion of strength to reach the holeside; 
accordingly, distance becomes the secondary 
factor; direction, trajectory, and similar 
considerations now engage our mind; we 
are in the approaching zone. 

Granting, then, that the green is less than 
a full shot away, we decide whether we want 
a high dropping shot or an ordinary run-up; 
we pick out the iron that we think will do the 
trick and play the ball. Now misguided 
persons do exist who use a full swing for 
virtually all distances, and who endeavor to 
secure the necessary variation in length by 
putting more or less strength into the stroke. 
Of course, this sort of thing is not golf at all, 
and the natural and proper procedure is to 
shorten up the back swing the nearer we lie 
to the goal. But if we attempt to measure 
that shortening-up by inches (as was actually 
advised by some of the older golfing hand- 
books), we shall be getting into all kinds of 
trouble at once. The goddess of golf is a 

86 



THE QUARTER GAME 

very feminine creature, and she decidedly 
objects to being ^^ mugged/' and measured, 
and asked how old she is; you cannot ar- 
rive at the mysteries of any art by means of 
a tape-line, else anybody might be a Phideas 
or a Raphael. No, we don't follow up a full 
drive with a three-quarters shot, taking our 
mid-iron for a half stroke, and ending with 
a quarter chip to the holeside. We play the 
long game in order to reach the approach- 
ing position; thereafter the length of the 
shot depends almost entirely upon the power 
of the club that we elect to use, and the 
lofting or running nature of its manipulation. 
And this is what we mean by the short game — 
the quarter game, as it used to be called in 
the classic days of Old Tom Morris and other 
bygone worthies. It follows that we ought 
not to burden our minds with arithmetical 
niceties; we shall need all our powers of 
attention in order to keep ^^eye on ball.'' 
The nearer the hole the stronger becomes the 
temptation to look up just that fatal fraction 
of a second too soon. The actual length of 
the back swing in the approach-shots will 
adjust itself without taking overmuch thought 
about it; nobody putts as though the ball 
lay three hundred yards, instead of three 

feet, from the cup. 

87 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

There is no particular reason why you 
should alter your grip for the quarter-game 
strokes. If you insist upon making a change 
you can let the left hand get a trifle more 
under the club-shaft, but it is perfectly pos- 
sible to play approaches with the regulai 
driving-grip, and experimenting with the 
position of the hands is always a little risky 
pretty soon we shall be getting totally ofl 
our drive, and innocently wondering why. 

So, too, with the stance, although innova- 
tions in this direction are not so likely to 
be the source of future trouble. The ortho- 
dox method is to advance the right foot fur- 
ther and further as the distance to be covered 
grows shorter, until finally we are almost 
facing the hole. But it is perfectly practi- 
cable to play approach-shots from a squar 
stance, and Mr. Laidlay, a famous North 
Berwick Amateur, approaches with his left 
foot nearer the line of play — that is, his body 
is actually turned away from the hole. Bui 
the great majority of golfers, including our 
pattern, Harry Vardon, approach with the 
right foot distinctly advanced, and most 
persons find the posture natural and eas; 
to assume. 

There are six different and distinct approach- 
shots, as I should be happy to demonstrate t 

88 



THE QUARTER GAME 

you, could we meet on the links or at my 
studio in the golf-school, but such refinements 
of execution are beyond the province of the 
A'B'C of Golf. For our purpose we need 
only consider the two elementary procedures; 
we may either loft the ball or run it up. Gal- 
lery shots are not for the tyro and nobody 
will care whether or not your ball makes a 
perfect arc in the air; the game of golf con- 
sists in getting into the hole in the fewest 
possible number of strokes. 

There is one basic distinction which de- 
cides whether the ball is to rise in the air 
or make most of its journey in contact with 
the ground. In the lofting shots the player 
stands so that his weight is behind the ball; 
in the run-up his weight should be ahead 
of th^ ball. Get this essential clearly in 
mind and you will have acquired a working 
theory of approaching. If there are no haz- 
ards to be surmounted, the running-up shot 
is the easier for most people. You stand 
with the ball definitely nearer the right foot, 
and consequently the club-shaft is extended 
at a backward angle, and your hands are in 
advance of the club-head. This position 
has the effect of reducing the loft of the club- 
face; when the stroke is made the ball is 
struck a descending blow. Hence its tra- 

89 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

jectory is low, but when it reaches the 
ground it has plenty of over-spin and that 
makes it run on. The weight is kept ahead 
of the ball throughout the stroke; you simply 
stand in front of the ball. 

In the lofting stroke we have the exact 
converse of the foregoing. The ball is nearer 
the left foot, the club-shaft lies at a forward 
angle, and the hands are behind the club- 
head, together with the weight of the body. 
The ball is struck an ascending blow, and 
its natural tendency is to rise in the air; it 
is traveling with back-spin, and this causes 
it to fall comparatively dead and run only a 
short distance after striking the ground. 

There is a useful variation upon these plain 
approach-shots which is not too complicated 
for an elementary manual and which opens 
a world of interesting possibilities; it is gen- 
erally called the ^^ push ''-shot, but a better 
term would be the ^^ squeeze "-shot. 

The fundamental idea of the squeeze-shot 

is that the ball is hit as though you were 

trying to drive it into the earth. Our mental 

picture of the ordinary stroke implies that 

we intend to pick up the ball cleanly; in 

order to do this the club-head must lightly 

graze the turf for several inches behind the 

ball. Accordingly, the ball is struck below 

90 



THE QUARTER GAME 

its center and the loft on the club-face lifts 
it into the air; this is perfectly plain, straight- 
forward work and simple to comprehend. 
Now suppose that the ball, instead of being 
nicely cocked up on the grass, is lying in a 
small depression or cup; manifestly it will 
not be possible to pick it up cleanly, and we 
must resort to the squeeze-shot if we expect 
to get it away in any sort of style. Now the 
success of this new stroke depends upon the 
player connecting with the ball before the 
club-head reaches the bottom of its arc; 
this means that the lowest point of the swing 
will be four or five inches ahead of the ball; 
consequently, when the club-head reaches 
the ground it will cut out a fid of turf in 
front of the spot where the ball has been 
lying. The idea is that you are trying to 
squeeze the ball between the club-head and 
the ground, and then allowing it to pop out 
under the pressure; you are hitting down- 
ward, and probably the club-face lands on 
the ball a trifle above its center line. Some 
of the scientific sharps have proved that it 
is mechanically impossible to hit a ball in 
the slightest degree on top and yet have it 
rise in the air. But you need not worry; 
just pound down on the ball, taking the turf 

after impact, and the club will do the rest. 
7 91 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

One way of acquiring the knack is to place 
half a dozen old balls in a sand-bunker so 
that they are lying cleanly and not too close 
to the cliff. Now take a medium iron and 
hit firmly downward and forward. Since 
the sand is soft, you won't be afraid of smash- 
ing your club-shaft, and, once you master the 
trick, you will be surprised and delighted with 
the business-like way in which the balls travel. 
The great beauty of the squeeze-shot is that 
it gives you more margin for error, and this 
is vitally important when the ball is lying 
badly. But don't try to play it off the tee 
or from decent brassey lies. 

There are two pieces of advice which I 
would impress upon you in the playing of 
the quarter game. First, never force the 
shot, particularly with the heavily lofted 
clubs, such as the mashie. If you feel that 
the distance is a little bit more than you 
can comfortably manage with an easy swing, 
take a more powerful club; don't attempt 
to get that little extra by using more strength. 
A forced mashie shot is almost certain to be 
badly hooked, the ball going into the rough 
on the left of the course. 

My second point is that about ninety per 

cent, of approach-shots are short of the flag, 

most of them never reaching the green. 

92 



THE QUARTER GAME 

The trouble is that we make our calculations 
on the supposition that we are going to con- 
nect cleanly with the ball. Now we cannot 
hit cleaner than clean; consequently, the 
least little error means loss of distance. Ob- 
viously, we shall be giving ourselves a better 
chance by making the back of the green our 
objective point rather than the pin. If we 
consistently aim for this further goal we 
are quite likely to make a curious discovery. 
It is this : Not five per cent, out of a hundred 
shots will be over the green, and the average 
distance past the hole will be less than we 
were accustomed to be short. ^^ Never up, 
never in,'' is still one of the golden maxims 
of golf, and the professional scores on the 
amateur chiefly through his greater skill 
in laying the ball up to the hole, thereby 
eliminating a respectable percentage of ap- 
proach putts. 

It is humanly possible that on our way to 
the hole we may have fallen into difficulty; 
we are bunkered, perhaps, or lying in the 
rough off the course or even in water. Well, 
the principal thing is not to get excited and 
so try to do too much. If the ball is in a 
bunker, take a niblick and hit into the sand 
a couple of inches behind the ball. Don't 
attempt to hit the ball itself, but just slam 

93 



A-B-C OF GOLF 



i 



into the sand as hard as you can; the ball 
will rise sharply and probably reach safe 
ground. If you are lying plump against 
the face or cliff of the bunker, you may 
have to play back; the important thing is 
not to smash away blindly and so waste 
strokes. 

Out of the rough, strength is a main req- 
uisite, for the grass has to be cut off at the 
roots for several inches before the ball is 
reached. Theoretically, we can sometimes 
get a ball out of long grass by drawing in 
our hands sharply as the stroke is made, 
thereby getting a big slice; the result is that 
the ball jumps almost vertically into the air 
and then spins away to the right. 

When a ball floats in water, the best plan 
is to strike about two inches back of it, and 
not to flinch at the splash. 

Undoubtedly, approaching is the scientific 

department of golf, and such masters as 

J. H. Taylor have brought it to a marvelous 

pitch of perfection. The program for the 

novice should be less ambitious, and if he 

can acquire reasonable proficiency in the 

three different approach-shots of which I 

have spoken, he will be doing quite well 

enough. Vardon's quarter game is as sound 

and as beautifully easy as is his free hitting, 

94 



THE QUARTER GAME 

and his system of approaching is well in- 
dicated in the many action photographs that 
have been taken of him. Buy his book, 
How to Play Golf, and study the pictures 
carefully. So once again I repeat: 

Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon. 



I 

a 
i 



ii 



VI 

PUTTING 

1HAVE a proposal to make, and I can hear 
already the shrieks and howls of execra- 
tion with which it is certain to be received. 
Nevertheless, I possess the courage of my 
convictions, so here goes: Why not increase 
the diameter of the hole by an inch, making 
it five and a half inches instead of four and 
a half? 

Do you ask my reason for such a sacri- 
legious suggestion? Well, it is the simple 
one that I consider the value of the putting 
to be out of proportion when compared with 
the two other departments of the game. In 
computing the par for any course we must 
allow two strokes on every green, or thirty-six 
for the full round. Now a medal score of 
seventy-two means golf of championship 
caliber, and yet one-half of the total number 
of strokes is assigned to the work on the 
greens. As I have said, golf is divided into 

96 



PUTTING 

three parts — the long game, the quarter 
game, and putting. It would seem emi- 
nently equitable that each should count 
in a one -third ratio in deciding the value 
of a perfectly played round. Suppose, 
for example, that we are playing a hole 
measuring three hundred yards; and say 
our Class A man drives two hundred and 
fifty yards, and lays his fifty-yard approach 
six feet from the flag. Up to this point he 
has played the game perfectly, so why not 
give him not only a chance, but a good chance, 
of putting the ball down? With a hole of the 
orthodox measurement it is possible to get 
most of the six-footers, but time and again 
we see the value of previous play virtually 
nullified by some wretched, invisible ob- 
struction that, at the last moment, turns the 
ball aside. With a cup measuring five and 
a half inches across, the hole would look as 
big as a well, and it would be perfectly proper 
and logical to cut down the par allowance of 
putting strokes; say, by way of experiment, 
that twenty-seven putts be the par quota for 
eighteen holes, distributed according to the 
difficulty of reaching the green. Certainly 
we should have the excitement of seeing 
many more putts holed from the edge of the 
green, and a perfect long game and brilliant 




A-B-C OF GOLF 

approaching would be fitly matched by 
spectacular holing out; probably, too, we 
should find it easier to calculate the theoreti- 
cal score upon which the par of a course is 
based. Americans brought about the big 
1900 boom in golf by the invention of the 
rubber-cored ball, and certainly that in- 
vention has added greatly to the pleasure 
of playing the game, whether or not it 
has made it easier. Golfers of the old school 
still lament the passing of the ^' gutty," 
and tell us that the rubber-core merely 
sets a premium upon incapacity; they 
would have us believe that it required real 
skill to play with the old-fashioned hard ball, 
while any one can gallop over the course 
with a ^^ rascal Haskell." Personally, I am 
inclined to think that these querulous gentle- 
men are asserting a proposition which they 
would find rather difficult to prove according 
to the rules of legal procedure. It is true 
that medal scores have been reduced, but 
who are the players who are making these 
wonderful records? Well, so far as Great 
Britain is concerned. Braid, Vardon, Taylor, 
and Mr. Hilton continue to hold their own 
pretty consistently; on this side of the water 
Mr. Travis remains a conspicuous figure in 
any company, and the name of Mr. Travers 

98 



t 



PUTTING 

is still high on the roll of golfing fame. No, 
the rubber-cored ball cannot win a champion- 
ship for the duffer, but it is a help to feminine 
players and to the man of only average 
strength of muscle. If the old ball put a 
premium anywhere it was on ^^beef " rather 
than on skill; it called for the exercise of 
great muscular energy to do any really long 
driving with the ^^ gutty,'' and in whins, 
long grass, or thick heather it was like a 
lump of lead to handle. 

I seem to have been wandering away from 
the particular subject of putting, but I am 
in earnest about my pet reform, and I hope 
that the U. S. G. A. may some day be moved 
to take the initiative in increasing the size 
of the hole; in the mean time we must do 
the best we can with the regulation cup. 
And yet I can't teach you how to putt; I 
can only give you a few hints as to the proper 
way of going about the business. The one 
supreme quality in putting is confidence ; given 
that and the ball must go down; without it 
the player will never attain the highest rank. 

First the grip. In the driving grip I told 
you that the finger-nail joints of the left hand 
must not show to the eye of the player — 
i. e.j the left hand must be kept well over the 
club-shaft. In putting, it is permissible, and 

99 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

indeed proper, that the left hand should be 
partly under the shaft, and in this position 
the finger-nails are distinctly visible. An- 
other grip used by many good players is the 
reverse overlapping. In this grip the right 
hand is wholly on the shaft, and the fore- 
finger of the left hand rides the little finger 
of the right hand. 

Stance and address I don't intend to dog- 
matize about. Stand as you like, so long as 
3' our position is natural and comfortable. 
Instead of making a waggle, as in the drive, 
the head of the putter is grounded momen- 
tarily in front of the ball; this helps you to 
square the club to the line of play. 

Most putts are missed to the right of the 
hole; in plain words, the ball is sliced. 
The remedy is to address the ball with the 
toe of the putter. Looking up too soon is a 
heinous sin with most players, and the ball 
is consequently mishit. If you will train 
yourself to continue looking at the slight 
depression in the grass that shows where 
the ball once rested, and listem for the wel- 
come sound of the rubber-core clinking 
against the tin, you will hole a noticeably 
larger proportion of possible chances. It is 
hard to do this; it is clean against nature, 
but it pays tremendously. Try it, 

100* 



PUTTING 

In the approach putt, practise stopping 
the ball within a six-foot circle which j^ou 
can make with some white tape and pins. 
You will then get the habit of laying the 
ball dead. Play always for a foot past the 
hole. Many of the great players are bad 
putters — that is, by comparison. One rea- 
son is because they know how little it takes 
to deflect a putt ; how even the way the lawn- 
mower last went over the green may slow 
or speed up the ball. Then, too, so much is 
expected of a champion, and it is humiliating 
to miss short putts. 

Eyesight may have something to do with 
it, particularly if you bend down a lot on 
the right knee and the left is your master- 
eye. It might be well to test this point out 
according to the directions given in Chapter 
II. 

A very good way to see if your putter is 
at right angles to the hole is to address for 
the putt; then, making sure that you don't 
alter the position of the head on the ground, 
and holding the club only in the left hand, 
get behind the ball and check up any error 
that may exist. 

Look at the part of the ball that you in- 
tend to hit and not at the whole of the 
sphere. Allow yourself two putts on the 

101 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

green— one to be dead and the other to hole 
out. If your approach putt is consistently 
laid dead, it will drop in the hole for a re- 
spectable percentage of tries, and that means 
a putt saved. In holing out, play for the 
back of the hole and endeavor to hit it a 
reasonably smart rap. A putt that sneaks 
up to the cup is easily turned aside. Be an 
optimist, for it pays; it is worth almost a 
stroke a hole over the pessimist. 

These are only general hints, but it is not 
wise to interfere too much with one'(|| natural 
aptitude for dealing with the ball on the green. 
The most important qualification is confi- 
dence; you know that you can put that putt 
down, and you do. A little girl once said to 
her golfing parent: ''Father, why is it that 
when you have two for the hole you always 
do it in one; and when you have one for the 
hole, you always take two?" Out of the 
mouth of this babe proceeds the whole 
philosphy of the putting-green. Practice is 
the other essential, and it is an excellent plan 
to putt at a cup less than the ordinary size- 
say a trifle less than four inches in diameter. 
The regulation cup will look as big as a cart- 
wheel the next time you play a match. 

Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon. 

102 



VII 

HINTS AND TIPS 

THE straight back is the all - important 
thing in the up -swing; some of my 
pupils catch the idea in one way, some in 
another. Pushing out the left hip, as the 
body swings round is one method of arriv- 
ing at correct form. If this is consciously 
and conscientiously done, the shoulders will 
move in their proper plane and the forces 
of the body will be concentrated in perfect 
balance to deliver the power to the ball. 

After you think you have assimilated my 

ideas and have nothing more to learn, go 

to a quiet corner of the links and have a 

friend photograph you in the act of hitting 

a ball. Have several pictures taken, one or 

two from behind. It may be that the camera 

will reveal truths somewhat wounding to 

your self-esteem; at all events, you will see 

yourself as others see you. 

103 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

One of the very latest fetishes is the straight 
left arm in the back swing, and several of my 
pupils, in their efforts to acquire this particu- 
lar piece of good form, are doing their best 
to ruin their game. The truth is that a per- 
fectly straight left arm, at the top of the 
swing, is an anatomical impossibility. Half- 
way up, the left arm should be straight, or 
nearly so. See that you are correct at this 
half-way point and you need not worry about 
what may happen later. 

If you can commandeer a room in the attic, 
or part of a barn-loft with a clear space of 
ten by twelve feet, you can arrange a very 
satisfactory court for home practice. It will 
provide you with the best possible exercise 
during the winter months, and you can keep 
in good form for the opening of the regular 
golfing season. (Frontispiece.) 

Three sides of the court are inclosed with 
netting to stop the wild balls, and if you can 
roof over this space wdth the same sort of 
one-inch mesh, so much the better. You 
may save yourself much exertion in picking 
up balls if the floor slopes slightly upward 
toward the target. Light wooden moldings 
should be nailed to the floor to serve as run- 

104 



HINTS AND TIPS 

ways for the balls rolling back under the in- 
fluence of gravity. If plenty of natural light 
is available and the court is only in use dur- 
ing the daytime, you will not need any ar- 
tificial illumination; otherwise you will have 
to hang two or three strips of canvas, one foot 
deep, from the ceiling, and fix your lights 
behind them in order to keep the glare out 
of the player's eyes. 

At the far end of the court is suspended 
the target. This is a piece of extra-heavy 
sail-canvas about three feet square; it is 
hung from the ceiling by wires. The target 
should be painted in colors to represent the 
conventional bulFs-eye. The lower edge 
should be about six inches from the floor, 
and it should be allowed to swing freely. 

A cocoa-fiber door-mat makes an excellent 
driving surface, and you may also provide 
a rubber mat upon which to stand. A long 
mirror, placed directly opposite the ^Heeing- 
ground,'' and a small shaving-glass fixed on 
the floor in front of the larger one, complete 
the paraphernalia. The office of the little 
mirror is to show you if your head is moving. 
Place it so that you can see the reflection of 

105 




A-B-C OF GOLF 

your head, and then try to swing without 
losing sight of it. 

Faihng the elaborate comfort of the home 
practice court, you can rig up a very satis- 
factory substitute in any back yard big 
enough for the proverbial cat-swinging. All 
you need are a moderately heavy blanket or 
rug and a clothes-line from which it may be 
suspended, with the lower edge just touching 
the ground. You can get along using paper 
or rubber tees, but a cocoa-fiber mat costs 
only a trifle and is infinitely superior, since 
its surface closely approximates that of a 
very decent fair green. Place the teeing-mat 
directly in front of the blanket, at just such 
a distance that the club will swing clear, and 
you may hit your hardest without fear of 
doing any damage, the balls striking the 
yielding surface of the ^^ back-stop'^ and fall- 
ing into ^ innocuous desuetude," to quote a 
once widely familiar phrase. 

The sensation of ^^ coming on the ball from 
behind'' originates in the right hip. In the 
impact position (see Fig. 4) it is apparent 
that the hips have returned to the front be- 
fore the club-head has reached the ball. Re- 
member that it is the right hip that fires the 

106 



HINTS AND TIPS 

gun; otherwise, the arms will precede the 
body; result, an arm-stroke and a short 
drive. 

Still another dodge for arriving at that 
necessary straight back in the up swing is to 
pay particular attention to the stomach 
muscles, keeping them under strict control. 
It is a very common fault to allow the 
stomach to protrude as the club goes back; 
as a consequent, the body must bend at the 
waist-line and the player is at once out of 
balance. Keep the stomach in during the 
up swing, and preserve the original inclina- 
tion of the body toward the ball; at all 
events, don't straighten up and away from it. 

Extra-long clubs tend to inaccuracy; very 
few players can use a ^^fishing-rod" to ad- 
vantage. Remember it is the rapidity of the 
stroke that counts, not the excessive lever- 
age of the long club. Vardon and Taylor 
both play with noticeably short wooden 
clubs. 

Correct timing is the co-ordination of all 

the muscles concerned in the stroke on the 

right side of the body. I hear people talk 

of a ^'whip-like crack" in the swing, but 

8 107 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

there is no such thing. You swing hard 
from the very top of the swing, and of course 
the club-head accelerates as it comes into 
the straight; that is one of the elementary 
laws of physics. Again, I have had pupils 
come to me with swings ruined through some 
hazy idea about throwing the club out to the 
right at the top of the stroke. They look 
like trout-fishers casting a fly. 

The left wrist and arm of most players is 
weak and undeveloped when compared with 
the right. It is absolutely necessary that 
the partially atrophied muscles of the left 
arm should be vitalized and strengthened 
if ever the player is to drive a long ball. In 
Fig. 9 a suggestion is given for regular morn- 
ing and night exercise in swinging a light 
iron with the left hand. Don't attempt to 
make a full swing or to strike too hard. Five 
minutes' practice everj^ night and morning 
will make an enormous difference in building 
up the muscular strength of the left arm. 
The drawing is also interesting in that it 
shows the proper grip of the left hand and 
the ^^roir' of the left forearm. 

The following first-flight players use the 
natural grip — the open champion, the ama- 

108 




Fig. 9 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

teur champion, and the Canadian champion, 
together with hosts of other cracks; so now 
is a good time to emphasize the fact that 
the overlapping grip is by no means a sine 
qua non. The natural grip — just as you used 
to hold a baseball-bat — will get you there 
and the modern theory is to be as natural 
as possible. Don't slavishly copy anybody's 
idiosyncrasies. An instructor has to be a 
vary careful student of the methods employed 
by all the leading players before he can come 
right out and boldly attack things like the 
so-called Vardon grip; especially as most 
professionals teach it and play that w^ay 
themselves. The parrot phrase ^Hhe wrists 
are more contiguous and therefore work 
more in unison" is simply an assertion, 
which anybody can prove to be wrong. As 
a matter of fact, the hands are equally close 
together in all correct grips. Finally, don't 
change just for the sake of changing, par- 
ticularly at the beginning of the playing 
season. If the Vardon grip suits you, by all 
means continue to use it. 



Another thing that most people copy, 

and which will not bear critical examination, 

is the open stance. As even such an authority 

as Mr. Travers in his book speaks of the 

no 



HINTS AND TIPS 

square stance as ^^ standing open/' I must 
explain that what is meant by the open 
stance is standing with the right foot forward. 
In the square stance the feet are placed 
parallel with the line of flight. This is the 
natural stance; and yet, on the contrary, 
I can remember when it was the fashion to 
have the right foot back — the very reverse 
of standing open. This even to non- 
golfers seems a more sensible proposition, 
and Spalding's Baseball Guide says that one 
can bat a longer ball with the rear foot back 
a little. For a while the open-stancers rather 
overdid it; now they are creeping back to 
what is almost a square stance. When 
Duncan becomes open champion no doubt 
many will adopt his square stance. The 
trouble with the open stance is that you 
have to hit diagonally away from yourself, 
because it is natural to swing parallel with 
the feet, and that means slicing. 

It is a well-hackneyed phrase that ^^golf 
is a difficult game.'' It is difficult to be a 
champion, but most people make golf diffi- 
cult by trying to learn alone, or with only a 
few lessons. Just as soon as a beginner can 
average about ten hits out of twelve he thinks 

that now he can get along on his own, He 

111 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

is only fooling himself, and from then on 
he will begin going backward. The occa- 
sional word of advice from the instructor is 
a case of ^^ prevention better than cure/' 
Practically no grown-up person can learn to 
play golf well by going off on his own hook; 
Mr. Travis is the exception that proves the 
rule. But small boys will copy their golfing 
heroes. I remember when I was a young- 
ster I could imitate the styles of John E. 
Laidlay, Ben Sayers, Willie Campbell, Bob 
Ferguson, and all the North Berwick golfing 
celebrities. Now, my trouble is preventing 
myself getting an over - remedy of the 
faults I am correcting in others. I had this 
first called to my attention when treating a 
chronic case of slicing. The slicer said: 
^'Now you play a couple of shots and you 
will pull them both." I vowed^I wouldn't, 
but I did. I was so earnest in attempting 
to cure the slicer that I had practically 
hypnotized myself. I find that just as soon 
as I get keen about my own game, so does 
my power of teaching wane. If you are in- 
terested in seeing the ill effects of self-teach- 
ing, go up to Van Cortlandt Park any Sun- 
day between ten and eleven and take up a 
position so that you can watch them drive 

off the first tee. 

112 



HINTS AND TIPS 

^^Off one's game'' is an old and well-es- 
tablished complaint. What you really mean 
by your ^^ game "is the golf you put up on 
the day when you played better than you 
knew how. Well, the cure is easy. Begin 
retrenching. First of all, cut out the driver 
—most week-end golfers w^ould have a better 
time if this club had never been invented. 
Try your brassey off the tee, and if this fails 
take a long-headed spoon. If this does not 
put you right, then keep on going down the 
scale, trying driving-iron, mid-iron, even 
jigger, until you can hit the ball successfully 
with something. Mr. Jerome Travers sets 
us all a good example by using a driving- 
iron when he is ^^off wood." Only dubs keep 
on persisting with their drivers until they 
have lost all confidence and have practically 
become chronic golf hypochondriacs. 

A shortened swing is a great help toward 
getting back to form. Most people over- 
swing, anyway. St. Andrews was once cele- 
brated for its long swing; now its players 
have gone to the other extreme, and apparent- 
ly to stay. It is the fashion at St. Andrews 
to finish the back swing somewhere short of 
the horizontal — the three-quarter swing, in 
fact. You will find that your idea of the 

113 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

three-quarter swing will be ever so much 
farther back than you imagine, so perhaps 
you will have to fool yourself into the belief 
that you are taking a half swing. 

A common vice is rolling the forearms 
too soon — erroneously called turning the 
wrists. (The wrists won't turn; that is a 
physical impossibility.) Vardon goes back 
about a yard before the club has very per- 
ceptibly left the line of flight or before his 
forearms have begun to do much rolling 
over. In any hit you want to go as directly 
to the object as you can and therefore you 
start as directly away from it. Q. E. D. 

Another oft-repeated fault is the position of 
the left hand. Try striking single-handed 
with the left hand. You will see that you 
can accomplish best results with the fingers 
only just hidden. (See Fig. 9.) 

With all the leading players the weight is 
more on the right foot than on the left in the 
address, and even more so at the top of the 
swing back. This weight is transferred to the 
left foot at the finish of the stroke. To prove 
this, take any action photographs of any of 
the leading players; determine the center be- 

114 



HINTS AND TIPS 

tween the feet and draw a line straight up; 
that will be proof sufficient. 

The club-shaft should be close in to the 
neck at the top of the swing and the hands 
should be immediately above the right foot. 

The body turns when it has to; not before. 
Turning the body too soon means a repe- 
tition of the same movement on the return 
journey, with a consequent mistining of the 
stroke. Mistining is getting the body 
ahead of the club, with the result that the 
ball is smothered. Remember that the club- 
head should precede everything. We get a 
good object-lesson from a navvy using a 
forehammer on a crowbar. All he thinks of 
is the part of the hammer he has to hit with 
and the thing he has to hit. 

Exercise your left arm by using it as if you 
were going to play a shot with that arm only; 
but be sure the left forearm rolls gradually. 
Everybody's left arm is more or less atro- 
phied. Make both arms equally strong, then 
you can make them work ^4n unison." 

Cultivate follow-through by bringing the 
right heel quickly to the front. 

115 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

In swinging back keep the left shoulder 
up till it hits you on the chin. Don't dodge 
this by putting your chin down to meet your 
shoulder. Note also that Braid, Vardon, 
Taylor, Duncan, and all the leading golfers 
do this. 

The left arm, at the top of the back swing, 
should be bent about as it was in the address. 
Straightening and bending the left arm are 
unnecessary complications. 

If you are in doubt about which hand does 
most of the work, ask any little boy the fol- 
lowing conundrum: If you had two mules, 
the one strong and the other weak, on which 
would you place the greater load? Go by 
his answer, but don't think about it when 
you hit. Those who think the left does most 
of the work will slice sooner or later. If you 
are still in doubt, get a picture of Vardon 
just before he connects with a ball and ask 
any non-golfing friend which hand appears 
to be getting in the poke; or ask a ball-player 
who hits right-handed. 

If topping is your trouble, remember you 
have still some will-power. Nobody is going 
to prevent you dropping down a bit when 

116 



HINTS AND TIPS 

you finish the shot. The mere thought that 
you are determined to drop down will offset 
the bad habit. It is also efficacious to prac- 
tise sclaffing on the door-mat. It is all habit. 
You don't think of your feet when you dance. 

If you have read about push-shots, wind- 
cheaters, and intentional slices and pulls, go 
to the open championship; you will quickly 
notice the complete absence of the above 
stunts. 

In mashie-shots the flatter the swing the 
less likely you are to make bad strokes. 
When your swing is like the letter U it is 
difficult to avoid digging up the turf; more- 
over, if you are sweeping along the ground 
you have a better chance of connecting with 
the ball. 

Remember that the majority of golfing 
ills are imaginary. Cure the imagination 
and you cure the disease. There will be no 
cure possible, of course, until a mechanical 
cause is removed. 

Practise golf health, and golf contentment. 

Kindle ambition and infuse it into your 

whole being. 

117 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

A golf-instructor's success depends upon 
his personality. He can't expect to influence 
others unless he can command himself. The 
successful golf-instructor inspires success. 

Expect to improve and you will improve, 
but remember the old saying, nihil sine labor e. 
Bad golf is often an error of the mind. 

Don't use a brassey in a bad lie. Take an 
iron. Brasseys were intended for springy 
turf, which we haven't got on this side of the 
Atlantic. Brasseys to be used in this country 
require more loft. 

It is most instructive to have snap-shots 
taken of your swing in action. At Lake 
Placid, where I go each summer for three 
months, I have a photographer come and 
photograph my pupils. Then they don't 
have to express Burns's wish, ^^Oh wad some 
power the giftie gi'e us to see oursel's as 
ithers see us." 

Many players try to hit too hard at the 
beginning of the downward swing, and the 
consequent ^^ setting" of the muscles keeps 
the club-head from attaining maximum 
speed, and so takes the ^^ punch" out of the 

118 



HINTS AND TIPS 

stroke. Now on a previous page I spoke 
of what I call the ^'gather'' at the top of the 
swing. The player begins a concentrated 
effort to put everything he has into the ball. 
But this moment of concentration is preceded 
by a loosening of the muscles, and not by 
their tightening. The student may obtain 
a practical demonstration of what I mean by 
resolving that he will come to a f^ill stop at 
the highest point of the swing. In point of 
fact, the club-head will not really lose its 
momentum, but the grip will relax its ex- 
treme tensity and the muscles will lose their 
uncompromising rigidity. This enables the 
player to start the club down easily; then, as 
the grip again tightens, the player gathers 
all his forces for the supreme effort and the 
club-head increases its speed as it nears the 
ball. It must never be forgotten that the 
power of the stroke depends on the speed 
with which the club is moving at the mo- 
ment of impact, and only in a very slight 
degree upon the amount of lead in the head. 

One should not consciously strive after 
either a flat or an upright swing; nature will 
look after that part of the performance. But 
if one is troubled by a tendency to over- 
swing, it is a good preventive to go back in 

119 



A-B-C OF GOLF 

a flatter arc, so that the club is carried round 
the point of the shoulder instead of straight 
over it. Also, make up your mind to take 
a three-quarters or even a half swing, in- 
stead of your usual full stroke. A player 
invariably swings farther back than he thinks. 
Therefore, take a half swing in a rather 
flatter arc than usual, and try to put in a 
distinct pause before starting the downward 
blow. You will be surprised how much the 
stroke will gain in compactness, accuracy, 
and snap. 

Try to hit as though you were coming into 
the ball from behind. I won't enlarge upon 
this tip, but I ask you to think it out for 
yourself. 

When the body leads the club-head in the 
down swing, mistining is inevitable and the 
stroke will be spoiled. A good preventive is 
to make the conscious pause at the top of 
the swing, of which I spoke in a previous 
paragraph. This allows the club-head to 
take its proper precedence. 

Be careful that the left wrist doesn't turn 
over too soon after hitting the ball. If that 
wrist is at all weak, when compared with the 

120 



HINTS AND TIPS 

right one, the tendency will be to have it 
give way, overpowered by the stronger mem- 
ber. The result is of ten a badly hooked ball 
and always a weak shot. Keep the left wrist 
as taut as you can for as long as you can. 

Whatever is Natural and Harry Vardon. 



THE END 



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